Member
Obscene SymphonyHunter
Name: Harukaze Naoto
Age: 17
Gender: Male
Regular Appearance:
Transformed Appearance:
Abilities: When transformed, Kabi unfurls into a serpentine dragon that slithers through the air at Naoto's behest.
- Smells Like Quaran-teen-ed Spirit - Naoto and Kabi are both capable of emitting a pungent, mildewy odor that saps away at the strength of nearby onryo, which Kabi can exacerbate by constricting them in his tattered body. Unfortunately, the smell's not very pleasant for anyone else either.
- The Dragon Feasts - Kabi can draw corruption into his draconic maw like a whale feeding on krill, where he then cleanses it within his body.
- Breath of the Great Dragon - Though not very glamorous, Naoto can emit jets of dirty dishwater that eat away at corrupted energies far more efficiently than his noxious odor does.
Personality: Energetic and scatterbrained to a fault, it's hard to keep Naoto's attention on anything for very long before his brain bounces off in another direction. In Naoto's worldview, a moment enjoyed is never a moment wasted, and the most dreadful state of being he can fathom is boredom. (What the hell is 80 HD and why do people say he has it? He's not a TV.) His parents would say he neglects to apply himself to anything, that he flits around toward whatever stimuli happen to catch his attention at the moment before dropping them entirely and moving on to something else. This is fairly accurate, much to his denial. (How's he supposed to focus on boring stuff all day anyway?) He pours his restless energy into everything he does, and expects everyone else to keep up, even when his attention span lapses and he's on to the next distraction.
History: The Harukazes have historically been very involved in the local shrine, and the current family is no exception; Naoto's mother was a shrine maiden in her youth and his father is a respected shinshoku. Naturally, they expected their children to continue this legacy. Naoto's older sister took to it wonderfully, the pride of their family and a spitting image of her mother as she tended to the shrine. Naoto himself was less than impressive. He never could seem to pay attention to his father's teachings and the rituals slipped his mind faster than he could learn them. As far as he was concerned, he just wasn't cut out to be a priest. Though as he grew older, the weight of his family's expectations mounted. Generation after generation of shrine tenders, only to be sullied by his laziness - or at least that's how his parents saw it. His mother in particular made it her mission to remind Naoto of this. Why couldn't he be more like his sister? She was dancing kagura and assisting in festivals at his age, but he could barely sit still long enough for a tea ceremony.
What started as simple ineptitude became willful disobedience. Naoto wanted nothing to do with that shrine. Whatever duties he was given, he'd rush through as fast as possible, just to get them over with. Eventually, his parents relegated him only to simple chores around the shrine, impatient as he was for the nuances of ritual and ceremony, while his sister was lavished with praise since somebody had to carry on the family name. Naoto wouldn't have minded if it didn't include constant reminders of what he should be doing and how disappointing of a son he was. As if the kami themselves were disappointed in him too, strange misfortune began following Naoto in his late teens. Nothing explicit enough to cause alarm, but it seemed like the more he denied his heritage, the worse his string of bad luck got. He was pretty sure he hadn't gotten a positive fortune on New Years in, well, years.
Naoto would've been content to leave it at that, had he not been (un)lucky enough to be assigned the envious task of cleaning out an old storage shed just off the shrine grounds. What should've been a banal, torturous task for the boy became instantly interesting when he toppled over a trunk of old linens and a voice of all things emerged from it. An old rag, tattered and mildewed to the point that it should've been thrown away, slithered out of the pile of fabric like a snake, rejoicing in the fact that a gifted individual had finally graced the shrine again and lamenting how foolish it was to not have an exorcist on hand for generations. The sudden contrast of himself being called a gifted exorcist while this serpentine towel dismissed his family as unfit to manage the shrine was so jarring that it halted whatever urge Naoto had to run away, and he found himself entranced by the creature's words. He wanted to know more. He wanted to be called special again. He wanted to run outside and rub the towel snake's words in his mother's face.
Unfortunately for Naoto, the praise did not last long. Kabi - as the rag introduced itself - found Naoto's incessant questioning while he explained the reality of the supernatural grating, and what started as a wise teacher imparting wisdom on a student quickly became a tyrant barking orders at his newest soldier. The green-haired boy was hardly the hunter Kabi had hoped for during his long slumber, but he was yet young and thus malleable.
Naoto's first foray into limbo was at the behest of a demanding taskmaster, and he feared that his new 'sacred duty' would quickly become as much of an unpleasant shadow looming over him as his old one. Only the novelty of the situation kept him distracted from that uncomfortable truth. (He kinda wanted to see what a ghost looked like now that he knew they were real.) The thought perished as soon as Naoto loosed his new pet dragon on the hunched over figure that hissed at his approach. He knew at once, this was his purpose. Kabi said he was born for it - something he'd heard before - but as the last of the spirit's lingering essence faded, Naoto found success where his parents' expectations had been met only with failure. He emerged back into the real world Kabi's dutiful disciple, eager to grow as a hunter. Or at least as dutiful as his attention span allowed, much to Kabi's chagrin.
Likes:
- Attention.
- Easygoing people.
- Doing stupid things with friends. The more ill-conceived, the better.
- Tempura.
- Lowbrow humor.
- Anyone willing to patiently teach his dumb ass math.
Dislikes:
- Having to sit still.
- His unintentional involvement in his family's legacy.
- Kabi's smell.
- Doing anything slowly.
- Pessimists.
- Criticism from women. (They're just a proxy for his mother)
- Optometrists.
Fears:
- His parents finding out about the whole 'hunter' thing.
- Being trapped in monotony.
Other: Naoto has a very tenuous conception of personal space when he’s excited.
Tsukumogami
Name: Kabi
Item: Moldy Kitchen Rag (Shiro-Uneri)
Appearance:
Personality: The August and Most Puissant Kabi-sama considers himself a noble dragon of regal bearing, and expects reverence befitting his station. This would be a bit more convincing if he wasn't a smelly towel. To make matters worse, His Celestial Majesty must occupy his time babysitting his hunter, lest the poor fool wander off in the middle of his duty most sacred. Kabi usually comes off as a crotchety old man and tends to nag a lot, especially to Naoto, though his ire can be assuaged by feeding his ego. For all his pomp, Kabi takes his duty very seriously, and once an onryo catches his notice, he will entertain no distractions - for himself or Naoto - until it has been cleansed.
Other: Though Kabi finds Naoto lacking compared to the hunter he'd bonded with in the past, he learned very quickly, in all his wisdom and splendor, that verbally measuring the boy unfavorably to them was a quick way to lose his attention, and thus politely refrains from such comparisons.
