✸ application

[lapinfrost]

Mun
Name: Reina
Personal Journal: asterism
E-mail: luminomancy [at] gmail [dot] com
AIM/MSN: rozeluxe or prinny beam
Timezone: PST/GMT-8
Current Characters in Route: N/A

Character
Name: Hiro Kageyama *
Series: Devil Survivor 2
Timeline: Day 4 (Wednesday)
* Hiro is the nameable protagonist of the game; this name comes from the manga version currently being serialized in Comic Earthstar. Aside from that, he's based on an interpretation of the game version's protagonist.

Canon Resource Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_Survivor_2

On the morning when the game first begins, Hiro, a senior high school student, has just finished taking an exam at school and meets up with his childhood friend, Daichi Shijima. Nothing too exciting, unless one counts Daichi showing him Nicaea, a dead face website in beta that claims to be able to show the deaths of people around you. They dismiss it as something meant to scare them, opting to go shopping instead (to be more exact, Daichi drags him to go shopping, but eh, details). With that done, the two friends go to the subway where they see their schoolmate Io Nitta along with a weird video showing a train accident the three of them are involved in. They then promptly die afterwards when the train crushes them.

...At least, that's the way things normally would have happened.

To save themselves, Hiro, Daichi and Io make a contract after being prompted to by their Nicaea guide and navigator, Tico. After that, a demon pushes away the train that would have crushed them. Problem solved!

...Except now they have to deal with the three demons who are bent on killing them for the sake of their freedom. But since they're mooks and the trio are main characters, the three demons get handily beaten into submission. And once Hiro, Daichi and Io defeat them, they realize that they now have a new app on their phone, the Demon Summoning App. Not very sure what to do about this new piece of info, they decide the best course of action is to flee the subway.

So they make their way above ground, only to find buildings in disorder and people panicking. A news report airing in the background does nothing to assuage anyone's worries, and only serves to cause more unease in the group. Not more than a few minutes after, they end up running into a tall woman who questions them about whether they saw something out of the ordinary at the subway. When she can asks if she can see their phones, however, the three of them make a run for it.

After they make their escape, Hiro and Daichi decide to help escort Io, whose house is much farther away from theirs, home. During their walk, however, they meet up with odd being that isn't exactly a demon. Their apps tell them its name is Dubhe, but nothing else. Unfortunately they have no time to ponder this before they must flee or else die from it exploding on them (as a few people so helpfully demonstrated).

Even more unfortunately, Hiro and Io get separated from Daichi while escaping. Especially more unfortunately, they get a death clip depicting Daichi's icy death at a recognizable shrine. They rush over there, and with the help of the tall woman from earlier who introduces herself as Makoto Sako, successfully rescue Daichi from death.

With Daichi saved, Makoto takes the trio to the headquarters of the organization she belongs to, JP's (Japan Meteorological Agency, Prescribed Geomagnetism Research Department), to treat Io's leg injury. But while they're there, they realize that (while Makoto is a nice person) JP's is a place they should run away from when Hiro and Daichi overhear from a conversation between Makoto and Yamato Hotsuin, head of JP's, about possible plans to confine them. And so they run off...

...Into a quirky man named Yuzuru Akie, a.k.a. Joe, who temporarily drags away Daichi by his leash scarf. But it turns out he was just trying to help them out in his own way; he too receives death clips from Nicaea. The trio teaches him how to use his Demon Summoning App, and he ends up joining their party as their adult chaperone.

Back to escorting Io back home! While they're hoofing it, they realize that Io's still suffering from her leg injury. Daichi goes to commandeer a truck...only for Dubhe (who for the record is part of a group of mysterious invaders called the Septentriones) to show up again. Thankfully, Hiro gets Daichi to drive away. The remaining three try to follow after him, only to be trapped, pretty forcing them into an unwinnable fight. Until Daichi comes back and drives the truck into Dubhe (after jumping out just in time), that is. This weakens Dubhe enough for Hiro, Io and Joe to finish it off.

Yamato, Makoto and a group of JP's members show up, there to exterminate Dubhe only to find out our intrepid quartet have finished it off, which impresses Yamato enough to ask them for their cooperation with JP's activities. Hiro, Daichi, Io and Joe do end up agreeing to help, because Yamato said they won't try to lock them up anymore, an idea which Makoto reinforced. Plus they couldn't exactly flee the situation even if they wanted to, especially since they were already beat up from the Dubhe fight and needed to rest.

On the next day, Hiro wakes up to Makoto barging in. He then talks to Daichi, Io and Joe about whether or not they went to their houses and what they saw there if they did. Afterwards, when he sees that Makoto is confronting a group of miscreants, he helps her fight them off.

Later on, Hiro, along with the rest of the quartet, visit Osaka upon Yamato's suggestion to see what's going on with their own eyes. There they meet Keita Wakui, the worst guide ever. While he's supposed to be guiding them around Osaka, he leaves them to their own devices, only telling them the time and place where they should be meeting up again. Of course, it's when he leaves and is nowhere to be found when they see Keita's death clip. And so they go to search Osaka for him.

During their search, they fight a weird hacker (who they will later know as Fumi Kanno) at the Festival Gate. They also help a dancer named Hinako Kujou who wants to join JP's to help save people from attacking demons. She decides to help them with their Keita problem when she hears about it. They also see the extent of Osaka's destruction during this time. Then they manage to save Keita from his fate of dying by being shoved like a basketball down some stairs.

Back at JP's, Keita introduces Hinako as thanks for helping since he's a tsundere boxer, and Yamato gives bad news about how screwed up the world may be. This news shakes everyone up, prompting Hiro to go and search for everyone to talk to them and help calm them down. Afterwards, he goes to talk to Yamato again, only for Merak to attack. Of course, they manage to defeat it.

Time to go back to Tokyo! Well, for everyone but Daichi, since he volunteered to go when Keita tells them that Yamato asked for one of them to go.

The next day, Makoto barges into Hiro's room again (Pervert!) to tell him that they lost contact with Daichi in Nagoya since communications are offline. Of course, Hiro's worried, so he goes to round up the rest of the gang, only to find out that 1.) Joe is reluctant to go to Nagoya but still willing to go later and that 2.) while helping the injured, Io finds her mother about to die from her injuries, whose last words to her daughter include the news that her father died too. Needless to say, Hiro opts to leave her be for a while since she isn't exactly in the right state of mind for a trip to Nagoya. But even so, she and Joe show up to go with Hiro to Nagoya to help Daichi out.

At Nagoya, they see a boy named Jungo Torii defeating people who misuse the Demon Summoning App and help him out. When he leaves though, they get a dead face video showing Jungo dying with a kidnapped Daichi in the background. New objective: Save both Jungo and Daichi.

Later, they meet a girl named Airi Ban (part of JP's Nagoya branch and a friend of Jungo) and help her out too. She suggests that a lady named Fumi could find Daichi and Jungo, so they all go to search for her. When they do find her, the quartet realize she's that strange hacker from yesterday and that she really is being possessed by a demon. So they get rid of the demon influence from her.

Fumi then gets their cellphone connections back online, and tells them that if they want her to find Daichi and Jungo, they need to get her a battery for her computer. They get her the battery fast, which allows her to find the place the two are/will be in quickly. With this, the party's able to successfully rescue them both!

After the rescue, they go to JP's Nagoya headquarters, only to find a man named Ronaldo Kuriki and his supporters ransacking it since he doesn't approve of JP's and their hoarding of needed supplies. But it's not like JP's can operate without supplies either, so the team defeats Ronaldo and his supporters, only for the next invader of the Septentriones, Phecda, to literally drop in on them. Despite him disliking JP's, Ronaldo helps them defeat it.

Later on when all the battles are over for the day, Hiro spends some time going around Nagoya and talking to people before going back to Tokyo with the rest of the Tokyo team.

The next day, Hiro is waken up by Makoto, who doesn't enter his room this time (and yet can be still called a pervert thanks to Hiro and his sense of humor). She tells him about JP's members and helpers undergoing physical exams today. Unsurprisingly, shenanigans ensue up until an alarm goes off to tell them that another one of the Septentriones, Megrez, has arrived (yes, very early in the morning). They go to fight it, only to find the battle easier than expected.

Of course, if it's too easy, there's gotta be a catch. And the catch here is that it's...regenerating? But whatever it is, it's quickly taken down in a blow by this odd young man (who also feels elderly at the same time) who can fly and seems to be able to command demons without use of an app. He introduces himself as the Anguished One and starts giving them some cryptic advice about the invader they just fought, telling them that its main body is elsewhere and that's what they need to defeat. Oddly enough, he refers to Hiro as the Shining One. Before they can ask him any more about what he knows, he disappears right in front of their eyes.

With this to mull over, Hiro goes to gather info about what they should do next and talk to people along the way...only to be unceremoniously brought to another world. Whoops.

Personality:
If you ever saw Hiro walking down the street alone, chances are you would peg him as quiet and reserved. And that would not exactly be wrong at all. He is pretty quiet most of the time, and even in conversations, his replies do lean towards the terse side of things because he's limited to picking between options. However, talking to him quickly reveals that he actually is quite cheerful and friendly, more than able to hold up his side of the conversation well. In fact, he is incredibly quick to strike up friendships with anyone and everyone who talks to him (within reason), often stopping to talk to people he's met all of once before just to get to know them better. On top of that, he is able to easily make friends with people he's fought with before if he wanted to. If they're otherwise cool people, then there's no problem with befriending them, right? Hiro certainly had no problems with talking to Ronaldo and listening to what he has to say despite them being technically enemies, and he doesn't necessarily agree with his methods at all.

So yes, Hiro is actually quite social and enjoys being around other people. He can read the atmosphere and has absolutely no problems with joking around to lighten the conversation, often taking jokes or ideas other people have set up and running with it. While this event has not happened yet at the time he will be pulled into Route, one example of this is when someone tells him to wish something smaller temporarily so he can transport it somewhere. How he voices said wish? "Grow smaaaaller! ♪" Hiro then goes on to jokingly say the exact same line again later when, of course, he needs it to return to its original large size. This happens close to frequently with him. He loooooves them jokes. At the same time, however, he is prudent enough to know when he absolutely has to be serious (such as during Septentrion fights) and when it's better to just walk away and leave people be. He recognizes that people do need their time alone and is willing to respect that. Plus, there are times when he will simply walk away from the conversation because he would rather not get caught up in whatever is going on and get dragged into something he would rather avoid.

Even under great pressure, Hiro remains able to stay calm and think fast on his feet, qualities that combine with his social savvy into great leadership skills. He can easily inspire trust and respect in others by virtue of his ability to get things done and listening to what others have to say, despite his predilection towards goofiness. And as long as he has a goal in mind, he will push towards it with all he's got. Nothing stops him for very long, and his determination to not fall into despair keeps him going even in the face of horrible news, which also allows him to encourage others to keep going too. Part of his determination comes from his strong pride though; he hates to lose. Hiro simply doesn't want to let himself and others down if he can help it.

Despite what other people say, however, Hiro doesn't really consider himself a leader-type. He can even sound surprised at being considered one if it's brought up early on. If anything, he considers himself a mediator and confidant when it comes to others. And troll. Can't forget troll. He much prefers to see people getting along, and goes out of his way to try to make friends with everyone and keep relations as smooth as he can. This allows him to stay neutral for now, but he is aware that he will have to start thinking about what and who he really wants to support. And he can't say he's looking forward to that day, since he'll likely have to fight against people who he considers friends (most of them for less than a week, but they're still friends, so there) no matter what he chooses. Unbeknownst to him, due to his tendency to befriend everyone, he literally is the only one who can possibly keep everyone together after relations start breaking apart, and whether or not he succeeds is dependent on whether or not he can get people to trust him enough to join whatever cause he has attached himself to. This will definitely irritate him when the time comes, to say the least.

While Hiro may be a natural leader, he also happens to be a space case with a love for jokes and silliness. The sight of him mercilessly teasing people simply for laughs and giggles is actually pretty common. He seems to enjoy actively getting reactions out of people and getting them to either play the straight man to his antics or join in on the fun. It's as if he actually has to hold himself back from making snarky comments or saying things like "can't be helped" when it isn't entirely appropriate for the situation. People sometimes have to tell him to stop with the jokes, such as when he plays along with Fumi asking what the "love call" from Yamato was about, saying that "[Yamato] said he liked [him]". Hinako plays the straight man here and tells him to be serious and tell the group what Yamato actually said, which he promptly does. Hiro also seems to be fond of running dialogue choices gags. Aside from "can't be helped", whenever Makoto visits him in the morning to give news during the first few days, one of his reoccurring dialogue choices is "Pervert!", since she originally had the tendency to enter his room without much warning. He also likes constantly referring to Airi as his little sister, since she fits the idea of one in his mind. When with Hinako and some other random Osakans, he'll start trying to copy their accent just for the fun of it. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Hiro does draw the line at being a peeping tom though. He wants to survive, not get beat into a pulp.

When it comes to people he's known for a while though (which for now just refers to his childhood friend Daichi), his jokes are far more pointed and sometimes even comes off as surprisingly malicious. It isn't because he dislikes Daichi (the opposite actually), they've just been friends for so long that he knows they can take potshots at the other's expense and neither of them would hold it against each other. He can be snappy towards Daichi when he's frustrated with his behavior or trying to play the part of the straight man, but he does genuinely worry about his well-being, not that he'd outright say it most of the time. He's weirdly tsundere like that, even to the extent that he'd tell him to shut up (a later event) after a certain incident with Io, basically saying that Daichi shouldn't have been so worried since it's obviously a given that Io would have been okay. A harsh yet silly way to put it, especially since he himself was incredibly worried about Io too.

Not all of his goofiness is forced though. Quite a bit of it is Hiro being a natural airhead who approaches everything at his own pace. Example? He has willingly met people alone at night when asked to (with demons to summon, but still). While none of the people he met up with are antagonistic towards him, it's not rare for demons to suddenly appear and attack others, a possibility he does not seem to mind at all. Probably because he's confident enough in himself to think that he'll be okay and survive any fights that come his way thanks to his ability to adapt quickly in battle and his surprisingly sharp intuition as a tamer, especially considering he only became got his Devil Summoner App at the beginning of the week. Even so, the decision to meet someone alone at night isn't exactly the most down-to-earth one he's ever made.

Speaking of decisions, rather than make plans from scratch himself, Hiro tends to be more comfortable with taking information from others and helping those plans bear fruit. He can act competently on his own and find ways to resolve the situation as necessary, but when it comes to ideas and plans, he usually ends up leaving it to others. But nevertheless, people seem to think he's suited for a leadership role, so he does try to live up to their expectations in his own way. In the end, however, he's really just going through things mostly at the beat of his own drum and it just so happens he's acting as a field leader along the way.

As a side note, Hiro's fond of rabbits. He totally chose female Tico because of her bunny motif.

Strengths/Weaknesses:
✔ Can keep his cool in any situation.
✔ Quick-thinking even under great pressure.
✔ Charismatic to the point where he can easily inspire trust and respect.
✔ Has incredible leadership skills.
✔ Willing to fight tooth and nail for people he has only known for a week.
✔ Confident in himself and his abilities.
✔ Gets along with others well and acts as a good mediator between parties.
✔ Has a sense of humor.
✔ Very quick on his feet and can cast many strong magic spells (which he can't do here, whoops).
✖ Can be blunt to the point of insensitivity.
✖ A space case who sometimes really doesn't recognize what he does is weird.
✖ Marches to the beat of his own drum.
✖ Likes teasing other people too much.
✖ Rather competitive and takes up challenges at a drop of a hat.
✖ Hates to lose.
✖ Finds it troublesome to act serious when it isn't strictly necessary.
✖ Tends to look to others for plans.
✖ Has little strength behind his physical blows and can't take many hits.

Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Trainer
Starter: Ditto
Password: Raspberry Lemonade

Samples
First Person Sample:
[ When the feed suddenly opens, a dark-haired kid with bright blue eyes can be seen staring intently at the screen before it suddenly becomes saturated with bright pink and a smiley face. One adjustment of the camera later, it becomes clearer that the bright pink thing is in fact a bright pink blob otherwise known as a Ditto. Then the kid's head shows up again above the blob. ]

I have a question.

[ Suddenly he pauses, thinking about what little he said just now. That shouldn't be the only thing he asks, so a little verbal backspacing is in order. ]

"Questions", actually. But for now...

[ He starts poking the top of the jelly blob, watching it jiggle slightly in response before returning his attention to the feed. ]

Can this dem-- Pokémon blink? Just wanna know if staring contests would be fair or not.

[ At that, the Ditto's smile turns upside down. The kid spares a glance downwards. ]

It's a perfectly normal question when your eyes are stuck like that.

[ Leaving the glob of cotton candy gel to pout, he looks back at the screen, poker face still in place. ]

But if you can't answer, that's fine. I'd settle for someone helping me figure out where I am instead, because I'm totally lost. Aaand that's all for now. Bye-bye! ♪

[ He then starts smiling and waving at the camera, his Pokémon half-heartedly joining in a few seconds later before the screen fades to...pink. ]

...Ah, I don't think that's how we turn this off.

Third Person Sample:
Fighting the urge to let even a facial muscle twitch, Hiro slowly leaned forward, making sure to keep his breathing controlled and rhythmic. His blue eyes never strayed from one small spot he designated as the "stare zone". Which would be fine if said zone happened to actually be interesting to look at, but the novelty of it wore off minutes ago. And after that ebbing of interest, something in his mind starting sending him urges to fidget. He pointedly ignored each and every one of them. Still, it would not do to sit so still for any longer, so he decided to move a little. Just a little. To give himself something else to focus on besides his quiet breathing, odd surroundings and traitorous mind, his hands lightly squeezed the area of his leg they rested on, below the calf and just above the ankle.

Even with these distractions, however, he felt his eyes narrow slightly and start watering, much to his mild displeasure. But there would be no giving in here, not from him. He redoubled his efforts by widening his eyes a bit and tightening his grip even more, all as discreetly as possible. Thank goodness for his well-practiced (on a certain childhood friend) poker face.

A few feet away, black beady eyes stared back at him, glassy and unyielding. He could almost feel the mocking in that gaze. But he ignored it, opting to size up his opponent again. Not much had changed from the last time he checked though. Whatever his opponent is, it (note to self: ask which pronoun to use later) continued to be cotton candy pink and gooey-looking with two dots and a line for a face. Sort of like moving jelly (oh, that's a good name there). Perhaps Jelly here's a demon? After he wins this challenge, he'll have to check his phone's app out and see what it has to say.

Speaking of checking things out, he really should figure out the deal with this room, its background music, and why he just so happened to be here. Last he remembered, he just started walking down the streets of Tokyo after the Septentrion attack earlier that morning. Whatever this room was, it certainly could not be mistaken for a city street. Jelly distracted him from immediately investigating the reasons for his sudden relocation with that odd face and appearance, so it temporarily slipped his mind. But once he proves his superiority in staring contests to whatever Jelly is supposed to be, he'll get himself back on track. Definitely.

And then suddenly a loud metallic clatter resounded from somewhere outside the room he woke up in. Startled, Hiro instinctively looked towards the door...and away from Jelly.

If someone dropped a pin in that room, the ensuing silence insured that the sound would be as noticeably as a brick falling.

Moments passed before Hiro broke the silence with a sigh and held out his arm towards the pink glob of gel a few feet away before saying, "Congratulations, you won this round". At that, the line that is mostly likely Jelly's mouth seemed to go up at the edges. Then Jelly glided (slithered?) towards him before holding out a glob that quickly took a paw-like shape.

Mentally raising an eyebrow, Hiro stared at the glob-paw for a while before shaking hands (more like hand and paw). Once he let go, Jelly started to transform its body again. Seconds later, Jelly looked remarkably like a certain emoticon Hiro had seen before (\(・ω・)/). Once again, Hiro stared at the transformation for a while. Slowly, he then held up an arm and gave it a thumbs up. Jelly's smile seemed to grow wider.

Maybe this would be the start of a beautiful friendship.