rainsblood: (❄ as reason clouds my eyes)
人斬り // Himura Kenshin ([personal profile] rainsblood) wrote2012-01-22 05:02 pm
Entry tags:

APPLICATION TO AMATOMNES

PLAYER
» Journal: [personal profile] natarialis 
» Birthdate/Age: May 1992, 19 years old
» Characters Played:  N/A


CHARACTER
» Name:
  Kenshin (Battousai) Himura
» Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin (manga)
» Reference:  http://kenshin.wikia.com/wiki/Himura_Kenshin
» Canon Point:  Remembrance Arc: three years after Tomoe's death, before the Battle of Tobafushimi
» Gender:  Male
» Age: 18
» Orientation:  Kenshin is heterosexual. It's canon, quite simply, without extrapolation necessary. As told through the manga, he falls in love with two women in different points of his life: one he marries (and though their relationship is initially set up as a cover, he tells her he doesn't want it to be just that) and she has an enormous impact in shaping the rest of his life and the way he thinks; the other it's implied he married as well, as they are shown to have a son together, and he calls her his most precious person.

» Personality:  From a child raised on the principles of the sword style that’s wielded to defend the weak, Kenshin’s most defining morality is to protect others. It is what drove him to run away from his master to join the Ishin Shishi at the young age of fourteen, determined to do what he could to keep the people of Japan from suffering at the hands of oppressors; it’s what made his soul “sick” from killing; it’s what would later lead him to become a wanderer and atone for his sins by protecting others. Kenshin has the gift of strength, and it is clear that he was given this gift to help those who need him.

He has an astonishing care for human life, especially rare in war-torn Japan. Even as a young boy, when bandits killed and looted his family and village and he found them dead in return, he dug graves with his bare hands for every dead person, villager and bandit alike, claiming that a human life was still a human life. Working as an assassin, Kenshin upheld a principle extremely different from the standard samurai bushido, which considers death a greater honour than injury or shame, especially when a samurai has failed in battle: unless directly ordered to kill, Kenshin would not take a life, even after he had otherwise gravely injured or maimed his victim and that man was begging for an honourable death (as Kujiranami did, later leading him to join Enishi and seek revenge against Kenshin for refusing him an honourable death).

It's a different person from the inherently kind man Kenshin is shown to be, however, who fights for the Ishin Shishi first as an assassin, and then a hitokiri, during the bloody revolution in Japan. It is Kenshin's idealism and picture of a perfectly peaceful, equal world that led him to run away from Hiko despite his master's lectures that the idea was a terrible one, and it is--ironically--from Kenshin's misguided views that he agrees to serve the Ishin Shishi as their deadliest killer. Though Kenshin carries out the kills he orders to make with little emotion, it's clear the killing goes so horrendously against his nature. He starts to drink, but even the alcohol tastes like blood to him, and he remembers Hiko's saying that if sake doesn't taste good, there is something sick in the soul; when he washes his hands, he can't get the sight of blood from them even when they are clean. Kenshin has to hold onto the idea that his killings are bringing happiness to other people in the country, because otherwise he would have nothing left for which to fight.  If he lets go of that idea, there's only depression that awaits him.

He had a brief, six months of happiness during his marriage to Tomoe during which Kenshin was not killing. This reminded Kenshin for what he was truly fighting--happiness in day-to-life--and he had a glimpse at what his own happiness could be when he wasn't killing. This led him to make a vow that when the war was over, he would never kill again, but he clearly hadn't let go of the ideal that he was killing for a purpose even then. This window of clarity closes when he accidentally kills Tomoe; it sends him further into depression than he ever was before and likely was the trigger for the development of Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder).

Because there is definitely another man within Kenshin, the one known as Hitokiri Battousai, whom other characters make a point to differentiate from the persona of Himura Kenshin. The “Battousai” that, when pushed in a fight, can be brought out of him, is intent on a kill and is ruthless in a fight. “Battousai” is recognised as a personality that must be “brought out of him” and that the actual Kenshin is “gone” when this personality is in play. He’s more aggressive, fights to kill, and is lost in the fight. People argue that he's even more skilled under this personality because his only intent is to kill. Battousai is dangerous and does not usually care about protecting those Kenshin loves (or at least that's not the focus or purpose of his fight): later in Kenshin's life, while once Battousai was brought out to protect Kaoru against Jin-e, her voice could reach him, but when Battousai appeared simply for a fight against Saitou not even Kaoru’s voice would get to him to pull Kenshin back. It is probable that Kenshin's DID developed as a defence mechanism for the trauma and horror of killing on his psychology, a way for him to retreat and do what he needed to do without being fully aware of how terrible it was as he was doing it.

Even when Battousai is not the acting personality, Kenshin still has a berserk button, and the easiest way to press it is to threaten a life: whether a friend’s or a child’s or someone he hardly knows, the threat of death can set him into a screaming rage. This was probably the beginning of Battousai; he completely lost his head when he knew Tomoe was in danger, rushing recklessly into his fights without stopping to be coldly critical of his situation as he usually is. This berserk button persists throughout canon, as he screams, yells, smashes lightposts, and just completely shocks people with the other side to this usually-gentle swordsman.

Yes, gentle. Not a word one would usually use for the Hitokiri Battousai, but it goes hand-in-hand with his inherent caring for human life. This is also not a side seen often with him, as he's usually overwhelmed with the weight of his sword and the war, but Kenshin was shown to be incredibly gentle with children during his time with Tomoe. Children tend to love Kenshin; he’s patient, very much so, and it makes him a wonderful elder brother or father-figure. One girl in Otsu tells him that even though her mother is suspicious of him, she thinks he's a very good man. Kenshin knows that children make mistakes, for he made some of the worst of them, but he also knows that simply telling them how to act will not convince them of anything. While allowing others to do things on their own so that they can learn and grow, Kenshin will be there in the background making sure they’re safe.

Kenshin is not a cold-blooded killer, but he can feel the weight of the lives he has taken--especially that of Tomoe's. Her death was the final straw in his willingness to hold a killer's sword. He swore to finish what he started so nothing could go to waste, but after the Bakumatsu he plans to throw aside his sword and never pick it up again Kenshin desires peace, rest, and happiness for others, and if people can have that, he’ll be content; but he fights so hard so that others can have it he forgets what it is to have it, himself. The only thing he can do until he can lay down his sword is withdraw, focus on his reason for fighting, and when necessarily let himself be lost completely in battle. He's so lost in grief and guilt that he doesn't yet know how to claw himself out of it, and it will be many years before he will be able to do so.

» Appearance: It's a running joke throughout canon that Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu is the secret to eternal youth, as both Kenshin and his master appear much younger than their respective ages. From this, though this observation is never made during the course of the Remembrance Arc at Kenshin's younger age, it's probably safe to say that his face has not fully matured, leaving his face rounder and softer than most eighteen-year-olds'. It doesn't help that he's very short, either; at twenty-eight he's only reached about 5'2", so he's probably even shorter at  the age of eighteen, around an even five feet at most. Besides his height, or lack thereof,  Kenshin's two most defining features--by which most people recognise him if they know of him--are his red hair (odd for someone native to Japan) and the cross-shaped scar on his left cheek. Like his hair, his eyes are oddly light as well.

Kenshin isn't just small in height. He does not have the muscle bulk that most practitioners of Hiten Mitsurugi, like Hiko, usually gain to handle the strain of godspeed on their bodies; he'd be better defined as lithe, because though he's not bulky, he's certainly not without muscle. He likely has small scars all over his arms and just a few larger ones on his chest; it's considered shocking when someone lands a hit on Kenshin, but he is also not invincible, and he was certainly badly injured in some instances (like in the Forest of Barriers at Tomoe's kidnapping).

» Suitability: If I'm completely honest, I would never send Kenshin to Atia without the knowledge that he would be joined by either Tomoe or Kaoru, the two women he loves--especially not this Kenshin, taken during the madness of the Bakumatsu. Although it's never canonly stated, he is shown to struggle with severe cases of depression, PTSD, and later even DID/MPD. While his six months of marriage to Tomoe pulled him back into a stabler mentality, his accidental killing of her plunged him right back into depression and likely was what triggered the development of DID.

With Tomoe, however, Kenshin's at a much healthier psychological level. She's referred to as a "sheath for his madness" and with her he first learns to be happy; as her husband, sex is certainly not something he would mind. In addition, while the trauma of Kenshin's life is what places him on the edge of sanity, it is also what matures him far more quickly than a normal child. At the age of ten he buried his family and village with his bare hands; at thirteen he left his master to join a war effort; and by fifteen he had made a name for himself as an assassin and had taken a wife. He may only be physically eighteen, but he has undergone many more situations than most people that age could claim.

SAMPLES
» "amatomnes" First-Person Network Entry:  


[ooc: knowing Tomoe is accepted back into Amat, it's expected that he'll be told of her presence, and since he wouldn't immediately go to use a device he has no idea how to use to determine his whereabouts, his first network post may not be on the same day as his arrival. so. here we go. :|b ]

Himura Tomoe.

[that's the first thing that's said the instant the feed turns on--shaky, maybe held at an awkward angle, definitely someone who isn't totally sure what he's doing but needs answers.]

I need to know if she's truly here--if anyone knows that name, if you know who she is, talk to me. Please.

[he's not here to fuck around, and the usually-emotionless cover he puts on slips twice: first in his desperation to have news on Tomoe, and second in the gaze that narrows into something colder immediately following his plea. slips into something much more dangerous.]

And if anyone has harmed her, I will kill that person.

[it's as though he's a different person as the one pleading--but he's just as earnest, just as serious. he's not afraid to use the blade at his hip.]

» "amatomneslogs" Third-Person Prose Entry:  

Kenshin was not a sound sleeper. The fact that he woke feeling so well rested could even be called his first notice that something was wrong.

He was slow coming back to consciousness, wrapped as he still was in the stupor of sleep. There'd been something in his dreams that kept calling him back, urging him to curl back and rest in the scent of white plums that lingered in his mind. It was not uncommon for him to dream of that scent, to dream of her, but it always made the waking moments even worse when he had to return to the bloody reality of the Bakumatsu. And this was even stronger than usual, the memories clear of her pale skin, close against his, her lips to his body--

There was more that was wrong.

His eyes snapped open as he wrenched himself out of the idyllic place of memory, jerking upright. There were many things horribly wrong here. First, the realisation of soft cloth against his skin: he very rarely slept lying down, and when he did, it certainly wasn't with any sorts of covers of this softness. Second, that he'd felt it against his skin--that he was naked. Kenshin slept lightly when he slept at all, and he had nearly unmatched reflexes. It was unheard of to get a jump on him. He had no clothes, no sword, not even the short wakizashi he kept along with his katana--where were his things? (He was panicking--or perhaps not panicking, exactly, just very very lost and not liking it at all--too much to notice at first the pile of clothes and both katana and wakizashi safely at the foot of the place it was that he lay.)

Third, he was in a place completely foreign. This was no Japanese architecture that he'd ever seen, no structure or material used in any sort of room that he knew, and when he stood (disregarding his state of undress) to cross to the window, he couldn't see Japanese landscape, either. This was nothing with which he was familiar. And Kenshin didn't like uncertainty.

He stumbled backwards, into a marble column, as his hands went to his forehead and his eyes widened. He wasn't completely naked, he discovered then; he had been outfitted with a band of black leather around his neck, one that his hands immediately rose to remove and yet couldn't budge at all. Where was he? How did he get there, wherever it was? He had to have been drugged, but he'd eaten only a little the night before with a few he trusted within the Ishin Shishi. There could be no other explanation, and it wasn't as though any person fighting in the revolution was safe--especially not one who'd killed hundreds of the opposing side.

Some cruel joke? A strange form of punishment? None of it made sense. He sank to the ground, heels of his hands digging into his eyes. He didn't even know where to begin.


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