Sento Kiryu

ABOUT

NAME: Sento Kiryu
NICKNAME(S): Takumi Katsuragi, Build
RACE: Half-Elf
AGE: 26
IDENTITY: M
EYES: Black
HAIR: Black
SKIN: Japanese

APPEARANCE

In his normal form, Sento looks like this, and in his transformed form, he'll look more like this. His armor colors, and some details on the helmet, change depending on exactly what transformation he's using.

Sento usually carries himself with the utmost confidence and takes care in his appearance. He's not going out of his way to do so, but he's still well-dressed and well-groomed...mostly. He's got a nervous habit of playing with his hair, so finding that mussed isn't out of the ordinary. He's fond of wearing mismatched shoes or boots, and he favors using the colors red and blue in those cases whenever possible. He'll go for a normal, matched pair of shoes if he can't grab a mismatched red and blue set--he's a little devoted to his aesthetic that way.

PERSONALITY

Sento loves learning and discovering new things. He can easily be derailed if the potential for some new sort of research presents itself, and he won't stop until he's satisfied that curiosity. As far as he's concerned, everything has to have some perfectly logical reason behind it. He's a man of science, and he's determined to make sure that everything makes sense in this fashion. He absorbs new information quickly and easily, and he easily applies this information to the situation at hand or any hypothetical issues that might crop up. He will absolutely lose himself in the lab for days and forget to do things like eat or sleep if he's not stopped. Finding him crashed atop some research after falling asleep in the middle of things because he's researched too hard for too long isn't out of the ordinary. He also does not shut up about being a genius. It is a major part of his self-identity, and even if some of it is hiding behind that ego in an effort to protect his squishy emotional center, you just don't go out and call your ultimate power-up Genius Form without honestly believing that of yourself.

He doesn't really want anyone else to get hurt. He fights for, as he puts it, "love and peace." He doesn't care that he might get hurt; it's when someone else suffers that he has a problem. He prioritizes innocent lives above all else, and when his actions directly lead to someone dying, he doesn't take it well at all. Although Sento will gladly fight should he need to, particularly if something needs to be protected, he would prefer not to. He will strive to find a peaceful solution above all, and when he's pressed into fighting, well, he'll try to settle things as quickly as possible, hopefully without killing anyone. (And if he does kill someone, he'll just completely shut down for a while, because he's not at all down with murder.)

Sento does not sugar-coat things, and for all his concern about people's well-being, his people skills need some serious work. For a canon example, when the others are trying to figure out how to break it to Banjou that they've discovered Banjou isn't human, Sento just goes out and says, "Banjou, you're not human." It's a good thing he's not a medical doctor, because his bedside manner would be atrocious.

He is easily impressed by his own brilliance and can't see why everyone else is, too. He's fond of leaning hard into his egotism as a shield for his emotions...and then he's honestly convinced of his brilliance, too. Should his brilliance fail him, depending on the nature of the failure, he'll either shut down completely or throw himself into some other research project until he feels better or thinks he can fix things. He gets frustrated when others figure things out before he does. Other people can screw up, that's fine, that's expected of normal, non-genius individuals, Sento can deal with that. It's when he fails in a task that he beats himself up over it. He's got too much responsibility and too much genius to be responsible for to squander that in failure. He's hard on himself and expects only the best of himself.

KEY EVENTS IN GAME HISTORY

In this AU, Takumi Katsuragi was one of the founders of Faust, an organization devoted to the advancement of alchemy...and other, darker magics. Scientific progress through any means necessary. Katsuragi was a fairly young alchemist who was far too wrapped up in whether or not he could do something that he failed to question whether or not he should, and with a war on, he felt he had a duty to try to create something that could help. In his mind, founding such an organization would let him research to his heart's content and make untold progress; it would be easier to ask for forgiveness for Faust's methods once they had results. He failed to look too closely at the research methods of his compatriots, a local politician named Gentoku and a cobra Shiftling who went by the name of Stalk, were using, and in time, came to use some of them himself when he was particularly focused on some bit of data or another. Gentoku took care of things with the government and provided prisoners of war to "help" with the experiments. Stalk and Katsuragi were purely there for the research.

Stalk in particular was fond of using unwilling victims--humans, elves, halflings, whoever or whatever seemed suitable--to test out various new ideas. Stalk at times seemed more focused on continuing the three kingdoms' war versus seeing to it that their native Thalassa was victorious, and he didn't care about any sort of cost. Not that Katsuragi minded at first. He wanted results, he wanted discovery, and he wanted data, no matter the price.

Still, once he had enough viable data, Katsuragi quietly started using himself as a guinea pig for what he hoped could be a project that could help people. He called it the Build System, for it built upon all his knowledge, and the word had a connotation with construction, which was more in line with the visions he had for his work before he went too far with Faust. It was a weapon, true, transforming the user into a powerful suit of armor, but he felt he'd be able to use it to fight when others could not.

He eventually decided he could no longer sanction Faust's actions (and weird monster creation, thanks for those nightmares, Stalk) and wanted out--but one simply didn't walk out of Faust. Katsuragi's conscience couldn't handle it anymore, for despite the results and progress he was seeing, the price and the way the others conducted their own research was just too much. He gathered his research, made a few arrangements--

--and was absolutely taken off guard by Stalk, who had definitely noticed Katsuragi's increasing discomfiture with Faust's methods. He, along with a poor unfortunate henchman, surprised Katsuragi at Katsuragi's apartment, where Stalk proceeded to overpower Katsuragi and kill the henchman, then use a bit of alchemy to switch their appearances. He used Katsuragi for a few more experiments, for he hadn't missed the experimentation his colleague had been doing on himself. Katsuragi broke free, intending to take his research, his Build System, and destroy his little research cabal once and for all, only to die after getting caught up in some of the war's fighting before he could do anything.

Katsuragi might have remained some sort of example on what not to do in some obscure alchemy textbook somewhere, only he was Awakened. It did not take him long to realize that since his appearance had been so greatly changed and that since he'd been dead for quite some time, no one would pay him any mind. But he knew he had a bit of a reputation as the "Devil's Alchemist" in certain less-than-pleasant circles, and that if he did run into anyone who was familiar with his name and research, there would be trouble. Besides, a fresh start just seemed like the right thing to do, given that he had, somewhere along the line, decided that he'd rather devote himself to upholding the ideals of justice, love, and peace with this second chance at things. He took the name Sento Kiryu, the personal name because he liked it, the family name because he saw it on a barbershop somewhere while trying to think up a name.

He didn't have too many marketable skills, but with alchemy seeing wider use these days, at least he was able to start plying his trade in ways that did not involve human experimentation, sins against nature, or dark magic. His talent with engineering, invention, and construction also provided him with more skills to use, and he quickly set out simply trying to help people...and continue his research on his Build System because he's certain he can use it to do some good for someone, somewhere, sometime.