Name:
Igarashi Daichi
Age:
17
Gender:
Male
Appearance:
"Nothin' better than hand signals when you're bein' hunted!"A sincere attempt at a smileA true monster of genetics, Daiji stands at 6'2", and generally looks like he's threatening you.
Personality:
Daiji, despite how it may seem, does not particularly enjoy how scary he looks. True, his voice may sound more or less like a growl at all times, his smile tends to give the impression of a young man who plans to steal your soul, and mutual eye contact sends most people into fits of terror but this is in fact due mostly to genetics, along with a little unwanted help from his inherent engine skill in regards to the final example. In reality, Daiji is a rather friendly person, who likes to talk to new people and help them out. It rarely works out of course, but he tries. When he
is with people who aren't scared of him, he's the kind of person who rarely stops smiling, and usually enjoys a bit of good natured teasing. Unfortunately, outsiders tend to see this as just straight up bullying thanks to his facial expressions.
He also enjoys playing and spending time with animals, which is ironic, as they
hate him. The number of times he's been swarmed by monkeys back in his home town, or more often in the last few days, cats. There have been a few close calls with... larger... animals, but thankfully he has been able to either avoid their notice or escape before they can catch him.
Ironically, when it comes to fighting, Daiji is actually a bit of a coward. While he
can fight, and quite well at that, he prefers to avoid pain whenever possible. The way he sees it, either he gets hurt, or he hurts someone else. This is not optimal, as he doesn't like making people upset, but he
also doesn't like feeling pain. So, rather than get stuck in this moral dilemma, he tends to avoid and/or run from fights.
Backstory:
Born to farmers in a small, relatively isolated town in the mountains, Daiji spent the majority of his childhood either helping his parents with the farm or running around in the mountains and forests. This made it easy to avoid accidentally affecting people with his eyes, which was a fairly common concern until somewhere around the age of six. Thankfully, the town was small enough that everyone quickly found out about this issue and learnt to avoid eye contact. Even at school, if you could call an old building with just four students a school, no one would meet his gaze out of fear. Daiji accepted this, of course, because why wouldn't he? He didn't want to upset anyone, and there was a roughly 70/30 chance that looking him in the eyes would do just that.
But it hurt.
By the time he was fifteen, he realized he couldn't do it anymore. The near complete lack of eye contact was left him feeling disconnected from everyone else, and despite his attempts to hide his pain, his friends and family had noticed. This was when his mother, Igarashi Mari, came up with a plan. When she was young, she lived in a town named Shiroyama and attended the towns battle school, where she made quite a name for herself due to her ability with the staff. However, the part that she focused on now were the lessons focusing on Inherent Engine Skills. She believed that, if he were to attend the school, he would be able to learn to control his eyes. However, she also knew that he would more likely than not have to fight, and so, despite already having spent some time teaching him how to defend himself, made a plan. From then on, she would teach Daiji how to fight in earnest, and when she thought he was ready, she would help him move to Shiroyama and enroll in Shiroyama High School.
After two long, painful years, Mari finally decided Daiji was talented enough as a fighter that she wouldn't have to worry about him too much, and started making preparations. Before he left, she presented him with her old staff from her own days in the school, Sarufuemaru, the Monkey Flute. With this final gift, Daiji was finally ready to set off and begin this new chapter of his life, and hopefully one day, he'd be able to look her in the eyes with pride, and tell her he had accomplished what he'd set out to do.
Inherent Engine Skill:
Gaze of the HunterDaiji's inherent engine skill is another rather unfortunate factor adding to his reputation. Whenever he makes eye contact with a living thing, that person will immediately feel an intense pressure wash over them, as if they were being hunted by some great, inescapable hunter. Around eighty percent of the time, this pressure becomes utter terror, particularly in those with weaker wills. In the other twenty percent, the pressure will instead come out in the form of great anger, which while occasionally a boon in combat, causing the opponent to act recklessly, it usually just makes things even harder for him. It is only those few with extremely powerful wills who can look him in the eyes without being affected.
Sadly, although he knows he can as he has done it before, Daiji doesn't really know
how to turn this on or off, which has made life quite difficult for him. Due to this, he generally tries to either cover his eyes or just avoid other peoples gazes, lest he accidentally make another enemy.
Active Engine Device:
SarufueSarufue is a seven foot long staff with holes that line the sides from top to bottom. Despite this, the staff is actually still incredibly sturdy, able to hold out against even the hardest blows as long as it's wielder can as well. However, it is these holes that are the source of the weapons power, catching and collecting wind within it whenever it is swung. The wielder can then release this wind at will, using it to push away opponents and divert attacks. And yes, it can technically be played in a manner similar to a flute, but the size and number of holes generally makes this difficult without help from others.
Skills:
Despite his size, Daiji is actually quite agile thanks to spending his childhood running around the mountains of his hometown, clambering over rocks and up trees, and more than once having to escape from animals that took a dislike to his presence. Along with this, he has been trained in marital arts by his mother, particularly in the use of bo staffs.
Outside of combat, Daiji is quite good at gardening, cooking and sewing, all of which he finds quite enjoyable.
Rank:
Right now, 0. He
just got there.
Club:
None at the moment, but he'd be pretty happy to start a gardening or sewing club if there isn't already one, or he doesn't find anything else to interest him.