[hider=def not sukuna (i lie)]
[u][b]Appearance:[/b][/u]

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[b]Name[/b]: Kagetsugi Minoru (影継 実), Monobe Tengoku (物部 天獄)
[b]Titles[/b]: The Worst Upon This Earth, Demon King, The Fallen
[b]Gender[/b]: Male
[b]Age[/b]: 19/136
[b]Alignment[/b]: Neutral Good
[b]Affiliation[/b]: None
[b]Clock Tower Rank[/b]: Cause (Formerly)
[b]Command Spell[/b]: 

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[u][b]Background[/b][/u]

[quote]“You will die here.”

Who were these words directed at? A killer? A visionary? Perhaps even something in between? Nevertheless, it ended with corpses littering a place that should not have been stained with blood.

A sacred place was desiccated, the ashes that were left behind forming a place that could never be touched by mundane hands. At least, that was the story for one of them. The other one on the other hand…

He had forgotten his name and even the name of the family he was born into. Long ago, he was born into a family, those few  British overlords that had decided to settle into the Indian Subcontinent.

But they were no mere noble family. They were those that were long ingrained within the world of magecraft, a branch family of a great family of the West sent to India to study the mysteries of the region.

It was only supposed to be a mere expedition, but as the knowledge and riches that could be extracted became abundantly clear, the founder of the branch family would create a much more permanent presence within the area.

The founder would marry with another mage that had travelled from England, and would father three children.

It is the life of the third child to be born that is of interest.[/quote]

[quote]“You must not exit the estate.”

Those words were repeated again and again to him. As the third child in the family, he was not given priority in regards to being taught the mystical arts.

His father would take note of this, and would dote on the boy, as he did not have the responsibility of being disciplined. To hide him from the ugliness of the world, the father would lock him up in his estate, never allowing him to glimpse the world outside that boundary.

Even though he was not given priority and was sheltered, the one known as Elliot had an inherent wonder for the world that made him the antithesis of his father’s isolationist policy.

His father would go on various journeys and expeditions. Elliot was told that it was for the sake of the family’s mission— to record and relay the information of the Subcontinent to the Mage’s Association. 

However, on one journey, his father would not return, and after days of searching his last known location, the man would be declared lost. Following his supposed ‘death’ his eldest son would take over as the head of the family.

It was this eldest son that would take pity on Elliot. After all, the child was like an infant, not knowing the joys and horrors of the outside world. With the founder dead, it was only a matter of time before the Clocktower would put more scrutiny on the family and potentially order them to return to Britain.

And so, the head would allow the third child to gradually become accustomed to the outside world. At first, it was of the more wealthy districts, accompanied by guards that would protect Elliot. But as time went on, the head would allow his brother to explore the more impoverished areas, and as the third son would learn more and more of the outside world, he would feel a great sense of pity and sadness for those outside.

His warped mentality would crumble even when he was in the wealthier parts of the outside world, seeing the suffering that was present. His naivety would be broken.

With his conception of the world destroyed, he would seek to mend the suffering that witnessed, to create the perfect garden that he knew the world could become.

It was in these moments of realization that he discovered the works and writings of the Buddha, and would become immersed in the path of arhathood.
[/quote]
[quote]Magecraft was a wonderful thing.

It was the one thing that allowed seemingly powerless humans to grasp the miracles of gods and monsters. And so, was it much of a surprise that the third son would begin to study it even more vigorously once he came to his epiphany?

In his years of self-study, Elliot would wander the Indian Subcontinent, absorbing much knowledge of the beliefs and religions of the people he encountered. Ultimately, he would put his faith in the path of the Buddha. But his mindset, that which had been broken by the suffering he witnessed, did not mend itself into something beautiful.

Instead, his view of the world would become distorted, and he would not pursue the middle path. In his twisted fervor, the third child would slowly fall into madness. In addition, in his travels, he would nurture a mask of someone that cared for the downtrodden whilst his sanity slowly decayed.

In his fervor, he would study more and more of what he saw in his family’s archives, learning of a sect of mages that utilized the framework of Western Magecraft with the the beliefs of the subcontinent and the greater Eastern world. Originally, they were Western mages that came through the paths of the Silk Road, eventually settling in Northwestern India and establishing a stronghold for the Mage’s Association there.

Once he finally found them, Elliot would become a loyal follower of their teachings, eventually reintegrating with the general western mage society once he had nearly reached his twenties. With their help and knowledge, he became a talented mage, eventually attending the Clocktower and becoming a proper mage of the Organization.

However, in his fervor, Elliot would commit a grave sin: that of mass experimentation on a village in Northeastern India. The sheer terror of his daemonic and spiritual experiments disgusted the Mage’s Association and the sect that raised him up once he showed them the result of his work. More importantly, he was risking the intervention of the Eastern mage societies with his foolishness.

He would be designated as a heretic, and would be hunted down to the point where he barely escaped further into the East,
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[quote]Mononobe Tengoku.

That was the name he adopted in the new land that he had fled to. 

Not much was exceptional about the land that he would inhabit. The same suffering and happiness that was present everywhere was present as well. Even though he had learned of the useful practice of self-mummification and had retrieved the bones of those clans that had betrayed the emperor, he would feel only sadness in his rituals.

Even when he had gathered a small following, the memories of his followers still haunted him. It was as if he was merely a husky waiting for death.

When he had purchased a set of Siamese twins from a freak show, he thought nothing of their existence but as sacrifices for his cause.

But as the twins would interact with him, as they would speak to him and share their thoughts with him, fervently declaring their loyalty, something impossible would happen: a bond would begin to develop between them and Tengoku.

It was realized that he looked at them not from an overlooking view, but from the same elevation and plane, did he realize all the suffering that he had caused.

He has become selfish in the best sense of the word.

Slowly but surely, his mind would begin to change, and when the twins were about to undergo the ritual of Kodoku, he objected to their sacrifice.

His followers did not listen.

Instead, they thought of him as going mad from his old age, and would dismiss all his exclamations. After all, the true Mononobe Tengoku would never object to such a thing.

He watched as the twins were locked in the room.

He witnessed them coming out of the chamber, covered in the blood of others.

And he could only watch in horror as they zealously underwent the process of self-mummification. Even as the mummy of the twins would be brought to different places of Taisho Japan, and would cause various disasters from their accumulating curses, he would only feel regret for his actions.

He would begin to despise his ideology of altruism, and would lash out at anyone who would visit his chambers. 

Of course, such behavior would only reinforce his followers’ belief that he had gone senile.

As his last act of defiance, Tengoku would order his corpse be mummified into a skeletal form that was infused with the information of his existence and consciousness, and would order the few remaining followers that were still loyal to him to hide it away.

The old man would then inform the Mage’s Association of his existence within Japan, that he had not perished long ago in Southern India. This would lead to the entire sect along with Tengoku himself being wiped out by the Association.

The only thing that remained was the mummy, which was hidden away in the mountains in the same shrine where Tengoku’s puppet was stored.

It is said that upon his death, the old man’s face was that of a tranquil smile.[/quote]

[quote]He was average, painfully so. Everything he did in life was either a failure or completely mediocre. Kagetsugi Minoru was his name, living in an average city with average parents. He thought he could tolerate it, but as he watched his friends and classmates become exceptional people, he could no longer bear with it any longer.

Even the people he saw as peers, as equals in the past, would far surpass him by the time he had reached highschool. He could not live such a life. So by the end of school, he would run. To where? He didn’t know, he just ran as far as he could, taking himself up the small mountain that overlooked his city,

There, he would find a strange place: an abandoned shrine deep in the woods. Something drew him to the place when he looked upon it, and even though he felt a sense of dread approaching it, he felt as if such a feeling would finally make him exceptional. 

After all, an average, regular person would run, and never talk about the dread they felt ever again. And so,he would enter the premises of the shrine, the building that held within it the treasure that he hoped would make him special.

Unusually, he would find traces of activity that would mean that it was visited relatively recently, as opposed to the decades or centuries he expected it to be abandoned. Perhaps something was transferred here or taken?

In the shrine, he would find a strange box, and upon opening it, he found something utterly perplexing: a mummy, a corpse with two heads, four arms and four legs, upon its body a tag that had the words “Ryomen Sukuna” on it.

Unbeknownst to him, another mummy would emerge from the deepest depths of the shrine, sneaking up on him. The last thing he remembered was the sight of the decrepit thing’s face, seemingly twisted into a serene smile.[/quote]

[quote]The next moment, he was in front of his home, sweating bullets. Upon spotting him, his mother would rush out, asking where he had been in a frantic voice. He had apparently been missing for weeks, but just as the situation was about to become clear to him, information would flood his mind.

Images of buildings, old enough to eclipse his lifetime by multiple factors. He saw many things, being raised by someone that was not his father or mother, and finally, the information would become coherent, giving him the knowledge of the existence of the Moonlit World, but not much else.

When he was ushered into his home, there was only one thing in his mind: he was exceptional. When he was given dinner, a voice would speak in his head, one that seemed oddly familiar to him: “Who are you?[/quote]”

[quote]After weeks of study and research, he had managed to contact parts of mage society. Nobody particularly impressive, not even a part of the Clocktower, but still, a pen pal that he could communicate with to figure out the present situation of mage society.

He learned of many things, nothing impressive, as it seemed mage society didn’t change much in his absence. With the knowledge that the two of them shared, the mundane world was much more impressive in its changes.

Especially the miracles of technology known as “cellphones.”

One particular tidbit of information intrigued him: that of a certain ritual happening in Switzerland. Needless to say, he was rather interested in the prospects of such a ritual.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t get into more trouble than he already had in life.[/quote]

[u][b]Personality[/b][/u]

Although Tengoku is a man that has many regrets, he does not seek to escape from his past, but instead rebuild something new from the present circumstances that he finds himself in. He finds peace in the teachings of the Buddha, but is perfectly willing to let go of the past beliefs that he held in order to atone for his sins.

What he despises most are fanatics that stop at nothing for their cause, not seeing any error in their wrongdoings or even doubting anything that comes from their creed. Those that belong in dogmatic cults and organizations are the worst people imaginable in his mind, especially those that wish to harm and enchain others for their viewpoint.

Meanwhile, Minoru is someone that has yearned for exceptionalism, but now that he has earned the status of being extraordinary, even learning that he had dormant Magical Circuits, now turns to the man that he considers to be like a mentor: Tengoku himself. At first, he felt aimless, but now that he has learned of the regrets of pursuing nothing but one’s ambition, he only wishes to find peace in life.

Still, Minoru has seemingly impossible ambitions: to reach the heights of humanity’s hierarchy, to witness what is beyond the earth’s atmosphere, and finally, to join humanity in the stars. Nevertheless, he tries to keep himself humble and focus more on the present situation that he can improve upon.

[u][b]Magecraft Information[/b][/u]

[b]Elemental Affinity[/b]: Earth and Water

[b]Number of Magic Circuits[/b]: C
[b]Quality of Magic Circuits[/b]: B

[u][b]Magecraft:[/b][/u]

[b]Attribute: Embodiment[/b]

The trait that is defined by the concept of taking external factors into oneself, mixing those things into one’s very existence. The existences that are closer to death and the concept of oblivion are far more effective to use with this trait.

[b]Attribute: Deification[/b]

Defined within Tengoku’s vision as that which allows the desires of mankind to manifest and become something more than their living hosts. In other words, it is the trait that gives birth to daemons and elevates them to the status of divinity, retaining parts of their sources.

[b]Mudra Hand Signs[/b]

A rather simple form of incantation that can be combined with verbal ones. Uses the Buddhist system of Mudras to use magecraft. Spiritual existences can also be used to help with the incantation process, significantly speeding up the time to bring about a spell.

[b]General Fundamentals[/b]

Basic magecraft inherited through Tengoku’s family and learned through the archives they kept in their library.

[b]Deity Yoga[/b]

The fundamental basis for Tengoku’s magecraft. It is the invocation of “deities” by dissolving oneself and becoming one with them. In the case of Tengoku, even his physical form is affected by such a process, allowing to fully engulf himself in the viewpoints of deities.

Its ultimate goal is to envision the enlightenment of the practitioner through the generation and competition stages. These stages allow the dissolving of a human into a deific form, the host of the deity allowing a better imagery to appear within the mage’s mind. By seeing themselves as something that is perfect, they themselves can gaze upon the true nature of the world.

Allows for a form of divination in its most basic form, but is far more specialized in using existences known as spiritual existences and grounding them to a vessel, allowing for a mimicry of their capabilities. 

[b]Generation Stage[/b]

The stage that concerns the conversion of desires into spiritual existences. To put it in simpler terms: it is the magecraft that is responsible for generating daemons. This is done through the dissolving of the mage’s mind and the incantations that convert desires and wishes into daemonic existences.

Through this, the third part can be actualized, allowing for the embodiment of these daemons into physical form. This stage is the naming of the daemons with divine language, giving them the traits that correspond with three different classifications.

The three different types of “deities” are as follows: fierce, which are those that take on wrathful roles in order to remove things in the way of the mage’s path; serene, which are those that take on peaceful traits and generally provide a restorative role towards the mage’s path; and finally, semi-fierce, who have the traits of both classifications, although are less specialized and thus weaker at each individual role.

In order to properly enshrine spiritual existences as “deities” their mandalas have to be fully realized as well. The mandala acts as a host of  lesser spirits as well as the Buddha Field of the deity in question. Practically, this means either the bolstering of the daemonic existences through the help of other spiritual existences, or summoning these “lesser deities” for various purposes.

[b]Completion Stage[/b]

The third stage of Tengoku’s magecraft. It is the process in which a spirit is able to become a so-called “deity.” By practicing various techniques that bolster the subtle body, which can be seen as the intermediary of spiritual and physical— the mind and magical circuits— enlightenment can be accelerated, leading a theoretical path to Truth.

Inner Heat is the core of these techniques, not at all involving those stages that involve death and the dreaming world. Instead, the waking world is the concern of this form of magecraft. The techniques can be separated into three particular classifications:

Tummo: Which is the fundamental basis for the two other techniques. It is the basic manipulation of the subtle body, using breathing as its core in order to access the bliss that can be drawn from magical circuits and the mind itself. In layman’s terms, it is a technique that boosts the performance of the magical circuits, mental capability, Od regeneration and general thaumaturgical capabilities of a mage. By using this, the strength of the “deities” can be further bolstered.

Ösel: The “bliss” that is briefly touched upon in Tummo. Normally, it is something that can only be experienced during unconsciousness or extraordinary circumstances, but through meditation and use of incantations, it can be experienced on command. Unlike other types of bliss, the mind of the mage is clear and further focused on their tasks. In practice, it allows a reigning in of the influences of the body and mind, giving immense amounts of resistance to the manipulations of such factors when active as well as boosting the capabilities of both. It gives greater control of daemonic existences that have been taken into the mage.

Gyulü: The practice of seeing one’s body and existence as nothingness— sunyata. When paired with the second technique, it allows an extraordinary amount of durability and robustness. Instead of giving resistance, it is instead the purging of already existing things such as injuries and the weakness of the mage’s reliance on its corporeal form. In the field, it can be used for rapid regeneration by purging harmful things and integrating parts of the world and environment into oneself to accelerate healing. It is what allows the fusion of deity and mage.

[b]Buddha Field Expansion[/b]

The last technique in Tengoku’s arsenal. Seeing the world as merely another extension of one’s existence— or more accurately, oneself as the extension of the world— the Buddha Field of various deities can be coalesced and warped into one existence. All are one, even the Buddhas that have ascended past the cycle of Samsara.

Buddha Fields are combined into one existence, creating something an existence that resembles a Reality Marble. The boundary releases the information of a malformed and incomplete release, a broken Buddhahood that floods all the information that the Reality Marble can pull from the world around it in a way that creates a bolstering of both the mage and the spirits that exist within them.

All so-called "gods" are able to manifest within the boundary without much trouble, giving a tremendous advantage in both combat and general mage activities. While it maintains the resemblance of a Reality Marble, it is truly more like a workshop that can be erected in place in order to empower the spells of a magus and drastically decrease the time of their spell casting. Once set up properly, requires little maintenance compared to a Reality Marble.

[b]Magic Crest[/b]: 120 years, first generation

[u][b]Mystic Codes[/b][/u]

[b]Ryomen Sukuna[/b]

A cursed object and mystic code that Tengoku grew to hate. The latter is a mystic code that has absorbed countless desires and wishes, used as a receptacle and shrine that can be used to create daemons.

It is contained within the puppet body of Tengoku and Kagetsugi, allowing them to draw power from the countless spirits and daemons trapped inside. The spirits themselves can be used as a substitute for magical energy in powering spells.

However, the original purpose of the mummy was to release curses and absorb the desires, wishes and hatred of those around it on a tremendous scale. Instead of using its own power to create curses, it instead draws out the curses present within humans in a cascading effect, which both Tengoku and Kagetsugi are completely unwilling to use unless absolutely necessary.

When partially drawn from or fully absorbed into the puppet body where it is stored, it twists the form of the puppet into that of a four-armed, two-mouthed and two-faced asura. Such a form has increased physical parameters and can cause paralysis by the mere gaze of its eyes.

[b]Vajra of Fury[/b]

A tool in the shape of a two-sided dagger that represents the furious deities that are stored within Tengoku’s puppet body. It emits golden lightning from its form, inflicting curses that give various conditions to those that it strikes. An object that can only be used to harm, it is not something that should be used for most situations where battle is not involved.

[b]Phurba of Rejuvenation [/b]

A ritual knife that serves only one purpose: to heal and cure the sick of their ailments. It is a modest weapon that does not have a purpose in drawing blood. Emits maroon flames, that paradoxically, does no harm and instead heals others. Cannot be used to heal the one that is wielding it and it’s blade cannot be used to harm others.

[b]Skeletal Mummy[/b]

A skeletal mummy that inserts itself within a host and replaces the existing system. Once inserted into a host, the memories, knowledge and consciousness of Mononobe Tengoku become present within the unfortunate soul that was drawn into the puppet’s presence. The process can only be completed on those that do not have active and awakened magical circuits.

The host is able to perform feats of physical strength, speed and durability that far exceed that of a normal human. Even their mind is bolstered against any threats that may intrude upon it. However, it’s true potential when it comes to storing spiritual existences within it.

A truly tremendous amount of spiritual beings can be stored within the mummy body, specialized in the act of invocation and temporary symbiosis with such beings. The art of using these spirits externally is also a feature, but it is not extraordinary.

[u][b]Nonmagical Assets[/b][/u]

[b]Wrath and Peace[/b]

Both a set of skills for hand-to-hand combat and the ability to heal others with first aid. As someone that studied the deities of watchfulness and healing, Tengoku is able to perform both miracles even without magecraft.

His wrathful side gives him an immense amount of skill in martial art, while his peaceful side allows him advanced knowledge and practical skill in first aid. He endeavored to learn such mundane skills in order to truly embody the gods that he used in his craft.

[b]Outdated Cell Phone [/b]

For all intents and purposes, not that bad when it comes to phones. But compared to the latest flagship, luxury phones? It pales in comparison. Still useful though.

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