鷹見 水名月 | takami "bitches gots to learn" minatsuki. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
floramentirosa) wrote2036-06-13 12:32 am
floramentirosa) wrote2036-06-13 12:32 am
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cerealia
Applicant Info
◎ Name: Mer
◎ Journal:antagoniste
◎ Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
triggerwarned
◎ Current Character(s): n/a
Character Info
◎ Character's Name: Minatsuki Takami
◎ Character's Canon: Deadman Wonderland (manga)
◎ Character's Age: 17
◎ Canon Point: Chapter 33
◎ Background/History: Lying Bitch: A Memoir
◎ Is the character a hacker and/or do they have a sixth-sense? Oh, god, no. That'd be the worst idea ever invented.
◎ Personality:
She's the girl-next-door...in prison, that is. In fact, at first glance, Takami Minatsuki doesn't even seem like she belongs in a hellhole like Deadman Wonderland at all. She's a sweet, gentle, shy sort who primarily keeps to herself and tends to the virtual flower garden in her cell. She's horrified of her Branch of Sin power, to the point where she breaks into tears at the thought of having to harm someone else---namely, one Igarashi Ganta, a fellow prisoner and Deadman---like she did her father. Well, actually, she murdered her father in self-defense; having been the victim of his physical and sexual abuse (she's even got the scars on her back to prove it!), it's an incident that continues to haunt and torment her to this day---to the point where she blames herself for it and views herself as a mutant freak with awful powers that she never wanted and never asked for. All she wants, more than anything, is for her beloved older brother, Yoh, to come and save her. After all, she never meant to kill their deadbeat father. She just wanted the abuse to stop, and her powers just so happened to awaken, catching the man in their wake.
Damsel-in-distress if you ever saw one, right? That's what Ganta thought, too.
Except the Takami Minatsuki as described above is a flat-out lie.
'Sociopath' and 'pathological liar' don't even begin to cut it. The real Takami Minatsuki is foul-mouthed, crass, and far from ladylike; she insults, lashes out at, and berates even those she would probably consider friends in normal circumstances. The real Takami Minatsuki just uses that 'demure helpless maiden' act to lull poor, naive saps like Ganta---and to a certain extent, Yoh----into a false sense of security. Minatsuki, in reality, is no different from the rest of the psychopaths she's been locked up with; she's a predator, and her cute appearance and young age are the bait. She revels in shredding her opponents into pieces with her powers and watching them stare at her in shock, pain, and horror; she even shamelessly admits the adrenaline rush and the satisfaction of having duped another dumbass sexually arouses her. Oh, yeah, and that tidbit about her father abusing her? Untrue. She murdered him just for the hell of it, as part of her sick game.
And that's what everything is to Minatsuki: a game. Her worldview is so twisted, bitter, and delusional that she views everyone as a liar; pawns who deserve to be played like fiddles and then tossed in the trash once they've outlasted their usefulness or once she's bored with keeping up her act. She scoffs at the idea of friendship, dismissing it as a ruse in order to get what you want from another person. Displays of sincerity and kindness serve only to disgust and piss her off---because she feels that everyone's out to use one another for their own personal gain. Her lashing out at Ganta during their fight is one such example; she calls him out on his whiteknighting, calling people like him 'the worst kind of liar, because guys like you fold whenever shit gets tough!' Even Yoh, her flesh and blood, isn't immune to being part of her skewed outlook; she damn near kills the guy after he calls her out on her web of lies and half-truths.
With that being said, Minatsuki's temper is quite nasty. She's already snappish to begin with, and is easily irritated, but fully provoke her, and chances are you'll come out either dead or in requirement of medical attention. Quite a bit of rage and resentment is pent up in that tiny frame of hers, and she's not above using violence as a way to vent that all out. In fact, it's pretty safe to say that it's the only way she knows how to deal with her issues. After all, prison isn't the most therapeutic of places; especially not a prison like Deadman Wonderland.
To Minatsuki, the world is full of liars. No one deserves to be trusted. Because in the end, she's a liar, too, but she'll be the best liar of them all, in her mind. And if anyone dares cross her, or lie to her, or catch her in a lie? She'll just kill them with her powers. Because it's what works, and it's helped her survive for as long as she has.
But where did all of that stem from? Here's the scoop: Minatsuki suffers from some serious abandonment issues, which thusly led to her violent distrust of others. At the time the earthquake hit Tokyo, she and her mother were at their flower shop. As the building collapsed all around them, a frightened Minatsuki tried to grab onto her mother as the latter dashed to escape. But her mother wrenched herself away, and kept running, leaving Minatsuki behind to die. It's assumed that this is when Minatsuki's Branch of Sin awoke, killing her mother in the process.
And she lied about it, being a child at the time. When asked where her mother went, she simply said she went out shopping. This marked the beginning of many more lies to come, and the trauma of being so coldly betrayed by her own parent left a bitter taste in her mouth, and still haunts her to this day. It's the nucleus of her modus operandi; and it's a double-edged sword---on one hand, it pretty much eroded whatever naivete and idealism she had towards the world. As warped as her outlook is on life, she is, to some degree, street smart on how to live in DW, and she uses this to help Ganta out a couple of times in the storyline. Her past has also left her with a vicious survival instinct; hence the lies, the cheating, and the girly facade. When she fights, she fights dirty; using Yoh as a human shield, getting Ganta injured prior to their Carnival Corpse match, and twisting the truth around to make it seem as if Ganta instigated the match to appear as an innocent victim in front of Yoh pretty much indicate how low she'll go to win.
Even so, her behavior alienates her from others, though it may seem like she doesn't give a crap and actually prefers flying solo. On the contrary, it is none other than Ganta and Yoh who make her realize that she actually doesn't want to be alone---that she does, in fact, need people to lean on in order to be happy and sane. Their capacity for forgiveness and willingness to still have her back in spite of what she put them through shocks, touches, annoys, and confuses her all at once. This not-so-rude awakening doesn't quite change her, but it certainly mellows her out enough that she simply acts like her real (unpleasant) self and grudgingly comes to accept the company and aid of her brother, Ganta, and the other Deadmen. Her relationship with Yoh slowly mends as a result of this; while she gets irritated by how overprotective he is of her, she cares about him enough that she's willing to repay him for saving her life by mending his injuries after a run-in with Genkaku, and she's generally seen in his company. As for Ganta, Minatsuki isn't quite as willing to show it, but she does display concern for him a few times, and finds herself feeling oddly hurt and angry after he inadvertently injures her and the other Deadmen with an upgraded version of his Branch of Sin.
Ultimately, however, her renewed sense of trust lends her the strength to carry on in spite of the shadow of her past. During the fight with the Forgery Uzume in Chapter 33, she stands up to the latter amidst her taunts and illusions; sure, she's an ugly and twisted person, but that doesn't really matter anymore. She can shoulder the burden of her sins because she has people she can rely on---and because they accept her, flaws and all, she doesn't have to play pretend and lie; not to others, and not to herself.
While she still occasionally puts on her old “girl next door” act---such as when Shiro approaches her for advice about how to cheer up Ganta after Scar Chain's riot takes a tragic turn, only to tell the poor girl to more or less berate Ganta---Minatsuki no longer relies on playing pretend and making up stories to earn people's sympathy and gain the upper hand. While she's very much coarse, irate, and belligerent, that's still her true nature, and now that she's been shown acceptance and forgiveness, it becomes clear post-Carnival Corpse that Minatsuki is learning to be more honest and open; not just with herself, but with other people.
Besides having her relationship with Yoh on the mend, Minatsuki is also seen more frequently interacting and socializing with the other Deadmen, in particular Choplin and Senji, which brings out her more mischievous and lighthearted---if still rough around the edges and mean-spirited---side. For one, when Senji gets flustered by Minatsuki’s otherwise short dress, what's the first thing she does? Flashes her underwear at him. It's something of a wry in-joke on her end, mocking, and perhaps subverting, her own previous “maidenly” persona, who used her own femininity to throw other people off their game and butter them up so she could more easily catch them off guard. While she still seems cute and sweet on the outside, what you see in terms of her personality is now what you get, for better or for worse.
But that's not to say that she's not willing to help others. Perhaps as a form of repaying him for helping her get off with a much lighter penalty for losing in Carnival Corpse, Minatsuki is considerably more mellow and even somewhat accommodating toward Ganta, even with her true colors now at the forefront. She now holds civil conversations with him with surprisingly little in the way of mocking or threatening him, and even goes so far as to give him sound advice on how to properly and effectively use his Branch of Sin, comparing it to controlling the flow of water…...while squeezing a juice bottle in his face. But it gets the point across, right?
Whereas before, she was something of a lone wolf, fighting mainly for herself while only socializing to maintain appearances and to deceive people under her helpless guise, Minatsuki now seems to be more willing to stand and fight alongside her fellow Deadmen, as part of a team. While she's still as vicious, unrelenting, and frightening as she was during Carnival Corpse---that poor Forgery she slices up to ribbons never even knew what hit them---she’s developed enough of an attachment to them that she won't just leave anyone to die, such as when she narrowly prevents Senji from being maimed by a Forgery’s venomous Branch of Sin (.....while still insulting and cursing him out for making her go through the trouble). She now appears to have found solidarity not just in Yoh, but in Ganta and the other Deadmen; through this, she's gradually beginning to learn how to care about people and view them not simply as means to an end, but as friends and moral support that she sorely needs.
Hence, why, after Ganta’s Branch of Sin goes out of control during the fight with the Forgies, she's understandably angry at and disappointed in him when he tries to apologize---he acted recklessly and without thinking, putting her life on the line as thoughtlessly as her mother did when they were trying to escape the flower shop during the earthquake. And so, she snaps at him, saying that placing your trust in others simply isn't worth it; implying that she does, in fact, trust him to some degree, and knows he's a good person. She lashes out at Shiro about the issue as well, claiming that Ganta betrayed her and the other Deadmen for the sake of Azami, who is herself a Forgery and therefore the enemy; but sometime after Shiro puts everyone in their place for letting their pasts dictate everything they do, Minatsuki, in a bout of frustration and perhaps hurt, reluctantly admitting to herself that she was angry because she's begun to think of Ganta as a friend.
So not only is Minatsuki learning honesty, solidarity, and friendship, but she's slowly regaining her sense of trust in others; it's like pulling teeth for her, it frustrates and confounds her, and she has a hard time willingly going out of the way for someone, but she's coming to see that she can't always go at it alone, and that she can no longer keep shutting people out and treating them with distrust and disdain. Hence, why she swallows her pride and later comes to Ganta’s rescue alongside everyone else, going up against the Forgery Uzume alongside Choplin---but it turns out Uzume’s Branch of Sin has powerful hallucinogenic effects, and, of course, Minatsuki finds herself confronted by the root cause of her sorrow and anger: her mother.
And for a little bit, she falls for the illusion; she still misses her mother, still loves her---she wouldn't have become as twisted and bitter as she has if she didn't, because her inherent rage is her way of coping with the feelings of hurt and betrayal. But what happened has already come to pass, and her mother is dead, and there's no use in still clinging onto the past, nor a dead woman. And more importantly, Minatsuki has been using the past---lying to herself, basically---as an excuse for her actions, her words, and, in turn, her own cowardice in isolating herself out of fear that she'll be once again abandoned---which is something she can no longer do if she's to move on with her life.
So with that in mind, she shatters the illusion, accepting the fact that, even though she herself is “ugly”, as Uzume puts it, what her mother did to her has made her who she is today, and what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger---as she had seen in Yoh, who took so many falls for her sake, and in Ganta, who'll stop at nothing to fight for those he cares about, even if it means putting himself through the wringer, and even for someone like her. In Minatsuki’s eyes now, there is no longer any need to fall back on the past to give herself a reason to live, as it had before; she is no longer alone, and she has found other, better ways to keep herself going, even in the hell that is Deadman Wonderland.
On a more miscellaneous note, Minatsuki displays a mischievous side from time to time. She seems to like making fun of people, in particular Ganta and Senji; she takes advantage of the latter's fear of immodestly-dressed women a few times. Also, don't walk in on her when she's dressing. It usually doesn't end well.
◎ Powers/Abilities:
As a Deadman, Minatsuki has the ability to freely control her blood, in the form of her Branch of Sin, Whip Wing. She typically triggers this by forcibly yanking off her earrings, causing her earlobes to bleed. The blood, in turn, takes the form of tendrils that mesh with her hair and can extend to what is assumed to be considerable lengths.
The tendrils themselves are capable of slicing a target and can do so quite rapidly, leaving behind numerous stinging cuts over a short period of time. They can also be used to restrain and constrict the target, and are strong enough to lift them up, as in the case of Yoh Takami.
Back when her hair was longer, Minatsuki was able to control numerous tendrils at once; by the canon point from which I'm taking her, however, since her hair was hacked short, she can now generate up to two tendrils.
◎ Weapons & Other Special Inventory:
Pretty much the clothes on her back; her trademark lolita dress, thigh-high stockings, shoes, earrings, and flower barrettes in her hair. She'll also still have her shackles around her wrists.
CEREALIA-Specific
◎ Element: Wind; she's snappy, quick on her feet, a quick thinker, and even quicker to anger. She strikes hard and fast, much like the wind itself.
◎ Sense: Sight. Minatsuki tends, for better or for worse, to often take people at face value----but, she also keeps a close eye on people, and can be scarily observant when she wants to be as a result.
◎ Seven Character Traits: (resilient, observant, quick-witted) | (fear of death, mercurial, paranoid) + polarizing
Samples
◎ First-Person Sample:
clearly she is a people person
oh, the angst
and something a little more humorous
◎ Third-Person Sample:
You're the hero chosen to save our world from a dire threat, they said.
Minatsuki lets out an irritated, disdainful snort as she takes the glorious Holy Wooden Stick from the panic-stricken villager; normally, she wouldn't be bothered to so much as give a shit, especially upon being given the highly suspect directions to the equally suspect caves that are, allegedly, her only means of leaving Random JRPG Village. Right. Okay. Because that's a trope that hasn't already been used in every nerdy fantasy story ever. And besides---Minatsuki rolls her eyes upon realizing this---shouldn’t she...at least get something sharp? And pointy? Not that a sword is useful to her anyway, as she has her branch of sin at her disposal (and it's way better than some crappy bullshit old-timey blade), but still. At least give the chosen hero of destiny something to work with?
Ultimately, upon waving her hand dismissively at the awfully choreographed warnings and hackneyed well-wishes, Minatsuki sets off----because, in the end, it's not as if she has anything better to do.
And it at least beats prison, even if she can't shake off some of the parallels between ViViD and Carnival Corpse. While ViViD isn't as life-threatening or deeply degrading (nevermind grisly), Minatsuki still gets a bitter taste in her mouth at the thought of that shitty foxfaced asshole Tamaki just giggling and tittering at the very videogame-ish concept of ViViD, and this JRPG horseshit is no exception.
Despite herself, as she reaches the cave entrance, Minatsuki takes a deep breath. Not so much out of fear----fighting is, quite literally, in her blood----but because...she's trying to forget. To move on. Her shitty world's bitten the dust, along with all the assholes who ran it.
(Of course, that's not to say her stupidass brother or a stand-up guy like Ganta deserved to be vaporized by aliens. No. Not them. But she can't dwell. She can't.)
Once again, she is the last one standing. She's back at square one, just like the day after she made her mother die. And she can feel it in the echoes of her footsteps as she treads through the winding, shadowy corridors of the cave's interior, in how her shadows lengthen in the torchlights.
Minatsuki shakes her head, letting out a grunt, and idly swinging her stick of destiny. No. She's alive because she saved herself. Her mother left her to die. That butterfly bitch---Uzume, or something---couldn't keep her enthralled with her fucked up illusions because Minatsuki had already accepted the truth: that she has to let go of the past, accept what had happened, and try to make the best of what little she has left, in spite of all the stunts she herself pulled.
That's when she hears a squeak. Then another squeak. And another. Soon enough, it becomes several, and a series of small, but fast, shadows start to dart toward her, flickering in the torchlight---
---Minatsuki grins, and yanks off her earrings. Whip wing slices and dices as she rushes at the shadows head-on, before realizing----
---They're just rats. Normal, average, common subway rats.
A dire threat, was it?
Minatsuki squints at the sliced-up, diminutive carcasses she's amassed. Well. That was a freebie, until she looks back up and sees several beady, glimmering eyes coming from the shadows ahead.
And she lets out the biggest groan known to man.
◎ Is your character retaining any previous game memories?
Nope, Minatsuki is gonna start out fresh.
◎ Name: Mer
◎ Journal:
antagoniste◎ Contact:
◎ Current Character(s): n/a
Character Info
◎ Character's Name: Minatsuki Takami
◎ Character's Canon: Deadman Wonderland (manga)
◎ Character's Age: 17
◎ Canon Point: Chapter 33
◎ Background/History: Lying Bitch: A Memoir
◎ Is the character a hacker and/or do they have a sixth-sense? Oh, god, no. That'd be the worst idea ever invented.
◎ Personality:
She's the girl-next-door...in prison, that is. In fact, at first glance, Takami Minatsuki doesn't even seem like she belongs in a hellhole like Deadman Wonderland at all. She's a sweet, gentle, shy sort who primarily keeps to herself and tends to the virtual flower garden in her cell. She's horrified of her Branch of Sin power, to the point where she breaks into tears at the thought of having to harm someone else---namely, one Igarashi Ganta, a fellow prisoner and Deadman---like she did her father. Well, actually, she murdered her father in self-defense; having been the victim of his physical and sexual abuse (she's even got the scars on her back to prove it!), it's an incident that continues to haunt and torment her to this day---to the point where she blames herself for it and views herself as a mutant freak with awful powers that she never wanted and never asked for. All she wants, more than anything, is for her beloved older brother, Yoh, to come and save her. After all, she never meant to kill their deadbeat father. She just wanted the abuse to stop, and her powers just so happened to awaken, catching the man in their wake.
Damsel-in-distress if you ever saw one, right? That's what Ganta thought, too.
Except the Takami Minatsuki as described above is a flat-out lie.
'Sociopath' and 'pathological liar' don't even begin to cut it. The real Takami Minatsuki is foul-mouthed, crass, and far from ladylike; she insults, lashes out at, and berates even those she would probably consider friends in normal circumstances. The real Takami Minatsuki just uses that 'demure helpless maiden' act to lull poor, naive saps like Ganta---and to a certain extent, Yoh----into a false sense of security. Minatsuki, in reality, is no different from the rest of the psychopaths she's been locked up with; she's a predator, and her cute appearance and young age are the bait. She revels in shredding her opponents into pieces with her powers and watching them stare at her in shock, pain, and horror; she even shamelessly admits the adrenaline rush and the satisfaction of having duped another dumbass sexually arouses her. Oh, yeah, and that tidbit about her father abusing her? Untrue. She murdered him just for the hell of it, as part of her sick game.
And that's what everything is to Minatsuki: a game. Her worldview is so twisted, bitter, and delusional that she views everyone as a liar; pawns who deserve to be played like fiddles and then tossed in the trash once they've outlasted their usefulness or once she's bored with keeping up her act. She scoffs at the idea of friendship, dismissing it as a ruse in order to get what you want from another person. Displays of sincerity and kindness serve only to disgust and piss her off---because she feels that everyone's out to use one another for their own personal gain. Her lashing out at Ganta during their fight is one such example; she calls him out on his whiteknighting, calling people like him 'the worst kind of liar, because guys like you fold whenever shit gets tough!' Even Yoh, her flesh and blood, isn't immune to being part of her skewed outlook; she damn near kills the guy after he calls her out on her web of lies and half-truths.
With that being said, Minatsuki's temper is quite nasty. She's already snappish to begin with, and is easily irritated, but fully provoke her, and chances are you'll come out either dead or in requirement of medical attention. Quite a bit of rage and resentment is pent up in that tiny frame of hers, and she's not above using violence as a way to vent that all out. In fact, it's pretty safe to say that it's the only way she knows how to deal with her issues. After all, prison isn't the most therapeutic of places; especially not a prison like Deadman Wonderland.
To Minatsuki, the world is full of liars. No one deserves to be trusted. Because in the end, she's a liar, too, but she'll be the best liar of them all, in her mind. And if anyone dares cross her, or lie to her, or catch her in a lie? She'll just kill them with her powers. Because it's what works, and it's helped her survive for as long as she has.
But where did all of that stem from? Here's the scoop: Minatsuki suffers from some serious abandonment issues, which thusly led to her violent distrust of others. At the time the earthquake hit Tokyo, she and her mother were at their flower shop. As the building collapsed all around them, a frightened Minatsuki tried to grab onto her mother as the latter dashed to escape. But her mother wrenched herself away, and kept running, leaving Minatsuki behind to die. It's assumed that this is when Minatsuki's Branch of Sin awoke, killing her mother in the process.
And she lied about it, being a child at the time. When asked where her mother went, she simply said she went out shopping. This marked the beginning of many more lies to come, and the trauma of being so coldly betrayed by her own parent left a bitter taste in her mouth, and still haunts her to this day. It's the nucleus of her modus operandi; and it's a double-edged sword---on one hand, it pretty much eroded whatever naivete and idealism she had towards the world. As warped as her outlook is on life, she is, to some degree, street smart on how to live in DW, and she uses this to help Ganta out a couple of times in the storyline. Her past has also left her with a vicious survival instinct; hence the lies, the cheating, and the girly facade. When she fights, she fights dirty; using Yoh as a human shield, getting Ganta injured prior to their Carnival Corpse match, and twisting the truth around to make it seem as if Ganta instigated the match to appear as an innocent victim in front of Yoh pretty much indicate how low she'll go to win.
Even so, her behavior alienates her from others, though it may seem like she doesn't give a crap and actually prefers flying solo. On the contrary, it is none other than Ganta and Yoh who make her realize that she actually doesn't want to be alone---that she does, in fact, need people to lean on in order to be happy and sane. Their capacity for forgiveness and willingness to still have her back in spite of what she put them through shocks, touches, annoys, and confuses her all at once. This not-so-rude awakening doesn't quite change her, but it certainly mellows her out enough that she simply acts like her real (unpleasant) self and grudgingly comes to accept the company and aid of her brother, Ganta, and the other Deadmen. Her relationship with Yoh slowly mends as a result of this; while she gets irritated by how overprotective he is of her, she cares about him enough that she's willing to repay him for saving her life by mending his injuries after a run-in with Genkaku, and she's generally seen in his company. As for Ganta, Minatsuki isn't quite as willing to show it, but she does display concern for him a few times, and finds herself feeling oddly hurt and angry after he inadvertently injures her and the other Deadmen with an upgraded version of his Branch of Sin.
Ultimately, however, her renewed sense of trust lends her the strength to carry on in spite of the shadow of her past. During the fight with the Forgery Uzume in Chapter 33, she stands up to the latter amidst her taunts and illusions; sure, she's an ugly and twisted person, but that doesn't really matter anymore. She can shoulder the burden of her sins because she has people she can rely on---and because they accept her, flaws and all, she doesn't have to play pretend and lie; not to others, and not to herself.
While she still occasionally puts on her old “girl next door” act---such as when Shiro approaches her for advice about how to cheer up Ganta after Scar Chain's riot takes a tragic turn, only to tell the poor girl to more or less berate Ganta---Minatsuki no longer relies on playing pretend and making up stories to earn people's sympathy and gain the upper hand. While she's very much coarse, irate, and belligerent, that's still her true nature, and now that she's been shown acceptance and forgiveness, it becomes clear post-Carnival Corpse that Minatsuki is learning to be more honest and open; not just with herself, but with other people.
Besides having her relationship with Yoh on the mend, Minatsuki is also seen more frequently interacting and socializing with the other Deadmen, in particular Choplin and Senji, which brings out her more mischievous and lighthearted---if still rough around the edges and mean-spirited---side. For one, when Senji gets flustered by Minatsuki’s otherwise short dress, what's the first thing she does? Flashes her underwear at him. It's something of a wry in-joke on her end, mocking, and perhaps subverting, her own previous “maidenly” persona, who used her own femininity to throw other people off their game and butter them up so she could more easily catch them off guard. While she still seems cute and sweet on the outside, what you see in terms of her personality is now what you get, for better or for worse.
But that's not to say that she's not willing to help others. Perhaps as a form of repaying him for helping her get off with a much lighter penalty for losing in Carnival Corpse, Minatsuki is considerably more mellow and even somewhat accommodating toward Ganta, even with her true colors now at the forefront. She now holds civil conversations with him with surprisingly little in the way of mocking or threatening him, and even goes so far as to give him sound advice on how to properly and effectively use his Branch of Sin, comparing it to controlling the flow of water…...while squeezing a juice bottle in his face. But it gets the point across, right?
Whereas before, she was something of a lone wolf, fighting mainly for herself while only socializing to maintain appearances and to deceive people under her helpless guise, Minatsuki now seems to be more willing to stand and fight alongside her fellow Deadmen, as part of a team. While she's still as vicious, unrelenting, and frightening as she was during Carnival Corpse---that poor Forgery she slices up to ribbons never even knew what hit them---she’s developed enough of an attachment to them that she won't just leave anyone to die, such as when she narrowly prevents Senji from being maimed by a Forgery’s venomous Branch of Sin (.....while still insulting and cursing him out for making her go through the trouble). She now appears to have found solidarity not just in Yoh, but in Ganta and the other Deadmen; through this, she's gradually beginning to learn how to care about people and view them not simply as means to an end, but as friends and moral support that she sorely needs.
Hence, why, after Ganta’s Branch of Sin goes out of control during the fight with the Forgies, she's understandably angry at and disappointed in him when he tries to apologize---he acted recklessly and without thinking, putting her life on the line as thoughtlessly as her mother did when they were trying to escape the flower shop during the earthquake. And so, she snaps at him, saying that placing your trust in others simply isn't worth it; implying that she does, in fact, trust him to some degree, and knows he's a good person. She lashes out at Shiro about the issue as well, claiming that Ganta betrayed her and the other Deadmen for the sake of Azami, who is herself a Forgery and therefore the enemy; but sometime after Shiro puts everyone in their place for letting their pasts dictate everything they do, Minatsuki, in a bout of frustration and perhaps hurt, reluctantly admitting to herself that she was angry because she's begun to think of Ganta as a friend.
So not only is Minatsuki learning honesty, solidarity, and friendship, but she's slowly regaining her sense of trust in others; it's like pulling teeth for her, it frustrates and confounds her, and she has a hard time willingly going out of the way for someone, but she's coming to see that she can't always go at it alone, and that she can no longer keep shutting people out and treating them with distrust and disdain. Hence, why she swallows her pride and later comes to Ganta’s rescue alongside everyone else, going up against the Forgery Uzume alongside Choplin---but it turns out Uzume’s Branch of Sin has powerful hallucinogenic effects, and, of course, Minatsuki finds herself confronted by the root cause of her sorrow and anger: her mother.
And for a little bit, she falls for the illusion; she still misses her mother, still loves her---she wouldn't have become as twisted and bitter as she has if she didn't, because her inherent rage is her way of coping with the feelings of hurt and betrayal. But what happened has already come to pass, and her mother is dead, and there's no use in still clinging onto the past, nor a dead woman. And more importantly, Minatsuki has been using the past---lying to herself, basically---as an excuse for her actions, her words, and, in turn, her own cowardice in isolating herself out of fear that she'll be once again abandoned---which is something she can no longer do if she's to move on with her life.
So with that in mind, she shatters the illusion, accepting the fact that, even though she herself is “ugly”, as Uzume puts it, what her mother did to her has made her who she is today, and what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger---as she had seen in Yoh, who took so many falls for her sake, and in Ganta, who'll stop at nothing to fight for those he cares about, even if it means putting himself through the wringer, and even for someone like her. In Minatsuki’s eyes now, there is no longer any need to fall back on the past to give herself a reason to live, as it had before; she is no longer alone, and she has found other, better ways to keep herself going, even in the hell that is Deadman Wonderland.
On a more miscellaneous note, Minatsuki displays a mischievous side from time to time. She seems to like making fun of people, in particular Ganta and Senji; she takes advantage of the latter's fear of immodestly-dressed women a few times. Also, don't walk in on her when she's dressing. It usually doesn't end well.
◎ Powers/Abilities:
As a Deadman, Minatsuki has the ability to freely control her blood, in the form of her Branch of Sin, Whip Wing. She typically triggers this by forcibly yanking off her earrings, causing her earlobes to bleed. The blood, in turn, takes the form of tendrils that mesh with her hair and can extend to what is assumed to be considerable lengths.
The tendrils themselves are capable of slicing a target and can do so quite rapidly, leaving behind numerous stinging cuts over a short period of time. They can also be used to restrain and constrict the target, and are strong enough to lift them up, as in the case of Yoh Takami.
Back when her hair was longer, Minatsuki was able to control numerous tendrils at once; by the canon point from which I'm taking her, however, since her hair was hacked short, she can now generate up to two tendrils.
◎ Weapons & Other Special Inventory:
Pretty much the clothes on her back; her trademark lolita dress, thigh-high stockings, shoes, earrings, and flower barrettes in her hair. She'll also still have her shackles around her wrists.
CEREALIA-Specific
◎ Element: Wind; she's snappy, quick on her feet, a quick thinker, and even quicker to anger. She strikes hard and fast, much like the wind itself.
◎ Sense: Sight. Minatsuki tends, for better or for worse, to often take people at face value----but, she also keeps a close eye on people, and can be scarily observant when she wants to be as a result.
◎ Seven Character Traits: (resilient, observant, quick-witted) | (fear of death, mercurial, paranoid) + polarizing
Samples
◎ First-Person Sample:
clearly she is a people person
oh, the angst
and something a little more humorous
◎ Third-Person Sample:
You're the hero chosen to save our world from a dire threat, they said.
Minatsuki lets out an irritated, disdainful snort as she takes the glorious Holy Wooden Stick from the panic-stricken villager; normally, she wouldn't be bothered to so much as give a shit, especially upon being given the highly suspect directions to the equally suspect caves that are, allegedly, her only means of leaving Random JRPG Village. Right. Okay. Because that's a trope that hasn't already been used in every nerdy fantasy story ever. And besides---Minatsuki rolls her eyes upon realizing this---shouldn’t she...at least get something sharp? And pointy? Not that a sword is useful to her anyway, as she has her branch of sin at her disposal (and it's way better than some crappy bullshit old-timey blade), but still. At least give the chosen hero of destiny something to work with?
Ultimately, upon waving her hand dismissively at the awfully choreographed warnings and hackneyed well-wishes, Minatsuki sets off----because, in the end, it's not as if she has anything better to do.
And it at least beats prison, even if she can't shake off some of the parallels between ViViD and Carnival Corpse. While ViViD isn't as life-threatening or deeply degrading (nevermind grisly), Minatsuki still gets a bitter taste in her mouth at the thought of that shitty foxfaced asshole Tamaki just giggling and tittering at the very videogame-ish concept of ViViD, and this JRPG horseshit is no exception.
Despite herself, as she reaches the cave entrance, Minatsuki takes a deep breath. Not so much out of fear----fighting is, quite literally, in her blood----but because...she's trying to forget. To move on. Her shitty world's bitten the dust, along with all the assholes who ran it.
(Of course, that's not to say her stupidass brother or a stand-up guy like Ganta deserved to be vaporized by aliens. No. Not them. But she can't dwell. She can't.)
Once again, she is the last one standing. She's back at square one, just like the day after she made her mother die. And she can feel it in the echoes of her footsteps as she treads through the winding, shadowy corridors of the cave's interior, in how her shadows lengthen in the torchlights.
Minatsuki shakes her head, letting out a grunt, and idly swinging her stick of destiny. No. She's alive because she saved herself. Her mother left her to die. That butterfly bitch---Uzume, or something---couldn't keep her enthralled with her fucked up illusions because Minatsuki had already accepted the truth: that she has to let go of the past, accept what had happened, and try to make the best of what little she has left, in spite of all the stunts she herself pulled.
That's when she hears a squeak. Then another squeak. And another. Soon enough, it becomes several, and a series of small, but fast, shadows start to dart toward her, flickering in the torchlight---
---Minatsuki grins, and yanks off her earrings. Whip wing slices and dices as she rushes at the shadows head-on, before realizing----
---They're just rats. Normal, average, common subway rats.
A dire threat, was it?
Minatsuki squints at the sliced-up, diminutive carcasses she's amassed. Well. That was a freebie, until she looks back up and sees several beady, glimmering eyes coming from the shadows ahead.
And she lets out the biggest groan known to man.
◎ Is your character retaining any previous game memories?
Nope, Minatsuki is gonna start out fresh.