DESTINY STRINGS → re-application ♥

Out Of Character Information
Name: Berri | [frogberri]
Age: 22
Time zone: -4 GMT
Contact: aim & plurk @ TaiyakinoNaku
Anything we should know?: Nothing really! Thank you for your concern though!

In Character Information
Name: Mikale "Mikky" Godono (the shadow mage of sin)
Age: 17
Birthday & Astrology Sign: September 21st | Virgo
Arcana: Strength

World Snapshot:

The Game of Fate world is an Earth with magic. History reflects what you would find in a textbook, except that inventions tend to come sooner and conflicts start and end more rapidly thanks to the influence of magic. For example, World War II was ended more swiftly due to magic used on both sides to cause more damage faster or gain ground faster. Inventions no longer needed one thousand mistakes before a success, as the miracle of magic allowed inventors to bypass their mistakes and speed right to success. It's the year 2000 at the start of the story, but technology reflects well beyond 2010.
However, not all of the world knows that magic exists. Magical society is a well guarded secret because there are people out there that would not hesitate to slaughter magic users in cruel witch hunts-- a fact evidenced by this world's history, when witch hunters began killing innocents (The early witch hunts in this world were not misunderstandings, but the paranoid hunting of actual witches). Magic users do all in their power to not attract attention; they co-exist side by side with "the normal world", holding normal jobs and having normal identities. There is no "Hogwarts" for magical children and there are no full-time magical jobs. Despite their magical powers, most magic users understand that their natural enemy, Witch Hunters, have devised ways to nullify their powers and can easily outmatch a low-class witch. Magic may be powerful, but a well trained gun will always be a deadly foe.

Those that do try to use their magic openly are dealt with by the MASQ, A magical government that monitors magical society and protects it. The MASQ is responsible for maintaining the secret of magic by arresting magical criminals and cleaning up any magic-related messes. They also assign all grown magic users a "Title", which is a secret identity of sorts that allows their magical life to be separated from their normal life. The MASQ's second most notable job, for this summary anyway, is clearing magic prices.

Because magic in this world is not for free. All magic users have a "curse" on their gene for magic that is passed down from generation to generation. It limits how much magic they can use freely. If they go over their set limit then they pay a "price", which is something very important to them. It varies from magic user to magic user, as everyone has a different idea of what is "most important" to them. If a person accidentally gets priced and loses a lot of important stuff then they can turn to the MASQ. In exchange for community service the MASQ will slowly reverse the effects of the pricing and return lost things to those who lost them.

As previously stated, this world acknowledges most if not all historical events in the "real world". However, they typically happened anywhere between five to ten years sooner than in actual history. As explained earlier, this is because magic has allowed inventions to be invented faster and for society to therefore develop faster. Magic is based around emotions and willpower. If you have a strong will to make something happen then it can happen almost instantaneously with the use of magic. If you're not thinking seriously about it then magic can't help you. In Game of Fate land, the number of causalities in wars is significantly lower because magic users would use their powers to wrap conflicts up quickly or to heal the wounded. Laws imposed by the MASQ forbid the use of magic to revive the dead.

There is also the issue of the MASQ's founders and their pity fight, which is the central driving factor of Game of Fate's plot. The price of magic did indeed keep bad magic users in line, but it also caused create suffering for good and innocent people. Founder Felicity Dystini requested that Founder Benita Goodon nullify the curse. In the panic of the resulting fight, Benita sealed Felicity in a single moment in time so that she could not interfere with the magic pricing system. Even though she is sealed, Felicity-- who now calls herself "Fate"-- has found ways to manipulate the present time. She continues to plot and plan a way to bring the system down, while her old friend Benita (now calling herself "Vinita") searches for a way to ensure that the system lasts forever.

Their lasting conflict pulls the strings in the Game of Fate, with "Samantha Kuroneko" as a centerpiece in their plan. And Mikale unknowingly manipulated into being just another pawn in the Game of Fate.

UNTIL ALL OF THAT BECAME IRRELEVANT WITH HIS CANON UPDATE. Oops.

Samantha Kuroneko finally reached the point of no return with her power. Given god-like powers through joint manipulation (Fate, Vinita, and Horie all contributing,) she decided to end the story's conflict and erase magic from existence.

This "reset" the world that Mikale lives in. Events happened sooner or later than originally due to the absence of magic. Some new people were born, others had the conditions of their birth rewritten and never came into existence.

Most obvious of the changes in Mikale's life are his date of birth and magic situation. He is now born five years later (but is still coming into the game as a 17 year old) and has no magical abilities. None. Nodda. He remembers the past world, but all physical traces of it are gone.

Backstory:

Mikale Reed lives in a world of magic. Ever since he was a child, Mikale has had the capacity and ability to perform magic. In fact, Mikale is somewhat above normal when it comes to magic; his mother was exceptionally gifted and that trait passed down to her one and only son. Magic is a dominate X-linked inheritance, so boys who not only have magic but so much potential are uncommon. In the sense of magic, Mikale was a very special kid from the moment he was born.

Not that his mother, or even Mikale, knew that. As far as his three person family was concerned, they were completely normal. His father worked an office job and his mother worked at a department store. They had a decently sized apartment in the middle of the city and seemed like the ideal couple. The family went out to dinner most Fridays and was viewed as an absolutely normal and happy family for the first seven years of Mikale's life.
Until his father's business began to crumble, anyway. He lost his job and had to start over at a low paying entrance position. The growing pressure of raising a child and their low income put Mikale's father in a bad mood. Constantly. It started slow, but his unhappiness eventually took the form of abusive behavior. Mikale watched as his patient mother was hurt again and again, with the violence eventually turning in his direction as well. Again and again, Mikale returned to a home environment where he learned to be afraid.
And again and again, his mother begged him to stay quiet about it. Still in love with the man she'd married and confident that he'd snap out of it, Mikale's mother tried to keep her son from doing or saying anything that would get his father arrested. He was told that he shouldn't tell his teachers, he shouldn't let anyone see his bruises, and he should have some patience. Blindly trusting his mother, and wanting her to be happy, Mikale obediently kept his mouth shut and put up with it.

Despite his mother's confidence, things did not get better. Since they were both genetically capable of magic, Mikale and his mother healed from the abuse very quickly. Even when Mikale wished someone would notice their bruises and injuries, they healed too soon to attract attention. He tried misbehaving in school to get attention, but the parent-teacher conferences that followed just put his father in a worse mood. Any attempt he made to change things either got his father angry or made his mother cry because Mikale was "trying to get his loving father arrested."
Eventually, Mikale just gave up. He chose to quietly endure the abuse and did all he could to keep it from getting worse. As his heart became exhausted he just became grouchy, with his classmates thinking he was a brat and Mikale being too exhausted to make any effort to change that image. He resigned himself to his fate, at the pitiful age of eight.

Then all of that changed. When at the doctor's office to treat a broken arm (he'd "fallen out of a tree"), Mikale met a girl that changed his life. Samantha Kuroneko was one grade level below him and not like the other girls at his elementary school. While Mikale had a hard time making friends, Samantha had no trouble with it. She carefully but quickly became his one and only friend, even playing with him at recess and inviting him over to her house for playdates. She was his escape and eased his emotional burden with her gentle kindness. It did not take Samantha long to become Mikale's very best friend. They became so close that, as their first Christmas gift to each other, Mikale and Samantha promised to be together forever. It might have been fair to say that the pair had a playground-level kiddy crush on each other.

She seemed to have an indirect effect on his home life as well. Mikale's mother would often meet Samantha's parents when picking him up, and the sight of their son so happy now seemed to ease the strain on his parents. The abuse let up. Mikale's father got a a promotion. They began going on family outings and visiting the Kuroneko family together. Things were finally looking up, and Mikale was honestly happy.

This all quickly ended. Two years after meeting her and reestablishing his happiness, Mikale lost it. He came to school one day and found that Samantha had disappeared. Quite literally. Her teachers had not been informed. Her parents could not be reached. It somehow became a fact that the family had moved "somewhere". But no clues or traces that might help tell where they had gone could be found. Anywhere. By Mikale or the adults around him. Concern for the matter gradually faded, in sync with the shattering of Mikale's home life.

There was a recession. His father was laid off and went back to his old ways. His mother, who had had a taste of the fruits of her patience, was just as timid as ever. And Mikale, who was angry and upset over losing his best friend, became uncooperative and provoked more punishment from those around him. The new stress of Mikale's attitude finally broke his mother. She had been subconsciously using magic to heal herself and hide her physical abuse, and all of that came at the price of the thing most precious to her... ironically, that was her ability to endure pain. She collapsed from a mysterious (magic induced) heart disease and was hospitalized, leaving Mikale at home with his father.

His father began staying out late and sometimes not returning home for days on end. When did come home he would be in an awful mood or in the company of people Mikale did not know. Whenever possible Mikale would stay away from the house and lurk around town at all crazy hours of the night, hoping to get picked up the police and rescued from his situation.

It was on one of these lurktastic adventures that he met Marron Dystini. Though Mikale did not know the big picture, or that there even was a bigger picture to begin with, she was working for a girl named Fate Dystini. Centuries ago, Fate Dystini had helped create a secret magical government called the MASQ to regulate magic users and protect them from with hunters. However, Fate had learned to dislike the system and was sealed away to keep her from being able to destroy the MASQ. And unknown to Mikale, Samantha had been born and crafted to become a catalyst for the spell that would unseal Fate.

However, Marron never told him these nitty-gritty details. She never told Mikale about how Samantha's mother had changed her mind about letting her daughter be a catalyst and run away from Fate. She never even told Mikale that Fate planned to use the strong bond between Samantha and him to relocate her, by following the string of affection tied between their magical hearts. All she told Mikale was that he could use magic if he wanted to and use it to change his life.

Mikale accepted. As he began practicing magic, Mikale drew on the strength his feelings for Sam gave him and highlighted the magical bond of love enough that Marron and Fate could follow it back to Samantha. She was in Japan now, living under the name "Satou Kuroneko", and this had been the only way to find her.

With his new magic, Mikale decided to do just as Marron was doing; he wanted to relocate Samantha and keep his promise to always be together. But he understood that there were two things in his way; his abusive father and his sick mother. He wanted to get rid of his father first and provide his mother with the resources to live on her own. To accomplish this, ten year old Mikale began taking odd jobs around town. Other magic users approached him and offered high-paying tasks that only such a talented mage could pull off. The jobs were often dangerous and scary, but Mikale did everything that he could to collect money.

Then he approached his dad. With his new found strength/magic, Mikale threatened his father and chased him out of their apartment. He told him never to approach his mother again, or Mikale would kill him. Threats that were only scary from a ten year old who had destructive magical powers. His father fled the apartment, leaving Mikale to spend his money refurnishing it and making it a more pleasant place for his mother to live when she recovered.

Letting his father run was his downfall. His father's blabbering about his crazy magical son mostly made him look like the nutcase, but witch hunters overheard and took interest. They came to Mikale's apartment one night and attacked him, catching him completely off guard and nearly killing him. But just in time, the MASQ stepped in. Vinita Godono, the girl who had sealed Fate away, personally sent the witch hunters running in fear.

Vinita's influence on Mikale's life didn't end there. She recognized his lonely situation and invited him to join her growing family. Mikale was adopted into the Godono family and given not only a new last name, to hide him from his angry father, but a promise to cure his mother, a title, and access to the magic he needed to find Samantha. But most importantly, he had a new home. His elder sister Franziska treated him quite kindly, his younger sister Renae was very clingy, and his baby brother Richard looked up to him. At the center of the family of abandoned magic users was Vinita, who worked hard to keep her family happy.

All of this happiness was given for free. Vinita never asked her new family to do anything for her. But it was very clear that Vinita was stressing over something; she came home late and would be running high fevers from overworking herself. No one in the family needed to be asked in order to want to help shoulder her burden. And though Vinita was initially reluctant, she accepted their offers to help.

So Mikale ended up working for her. Mikale had a reputation as being a gun-for-hire and took a job arresting or disabling dangerous magic users. Not a strange task, with Vinita being so dedicated to the magical government. But he also began watching over a girl he did not find particularly dangerous; Satou Kuroneko, and her little sister Masume Sakura, were newbies at magic and had a strong sense of justice. They used their powers to stop bad guys and make people's dreams come true, which to Mikale made his job of keeping an eye on them more like watching a live action magical girl show. Still, he did it because he was asked to.

All while ironically trying to find Samantha, the very girl he was stalking. Mikale used his magic and resources to their limits, but couldn't ever find Samantha. Not because he was inept or too stupid to recognize her. It was quite the opposite. Mikale continuously gathered enough clues to trace Samantha and he was finding himself more and more interested in Satou, the girl who reminded him so much of Sam.
But making the connection was impossible. The price of Mikale's magic, just as with every other mage, was the thing most important to him: Keeping his promise to Samantha. This meant that it was impossible for Mikale to ever "find" Samantha. His magic curse interfered with his thought processes and blocked his brain's ability to recognize Satou as Samantha.

At this point, it may help to read Satou's history, because Mikale is crossing over with her's frequently. He was a witness to Satou's dark curse and was among the few who saw her murder her own father, and participated in the decision to block her memories of the incident.
When Masume and Satou entered the Title Competition, a contest where they hoped to gain recognition for their skills, Mikale continued to follow them. They eventually got into so much trouble that he was forced to reveal himself to protect them-- which wasn't initially part of his job, but something he felt compelled to do. From there, Satou and him began to interact more and more. He formed a fresh friendship with her, one he didn't associate with Samantha, and began becoming more and more fond of her as he continued watching her adventures.

When Touka Takamachi joined the team, this friendship had to be severed. Vinita realized that Satou was no longer "maybe a bit dangerous" but now "absolutely a problem." She informed Mikale that he was probably going to need to kill Satou before she could accidentally destroy the world. Mikale liked Satou a lot, but knew that a destroyed world would mean Samantha died... so, he accepted the contradicting task of hunting Satou to protect Samantha... Hunting Satou to protect Satou.

As the first arc wrapped up, Satou had recognized Mikale as her best friend from childhood and was determined to 'save' him. She had no way to get him to recognize her, so focused on building their relationship from scratch. Masume and Satou won the contest, but were separated on their way to the awards ceremony. Satou was forced into a fight with witch hunters, something Vinita had arranged, and forced to use a lot of magic to stay alive. She might have died then, if not for Mikale's decision to step in and save her.
Satou was still priced for her overuse of magic. The most important thing to her was being recognized, so people began to forget that she had ever and still did exist. This was Vinita's second attempt to kill her. Unable to be recognized, Satou could not find safe shelter at night, couldn't find food, and couldn't take care of herself. And once again, Mikale stepped in to provide Satou with the resources she needed. He was supposed to kill her, but Mikale's growing affections outweighed his job.

At age sixteen, three years after society forgot Satou (who was fifteen now), Mikale had still failed to kill her. Vinita had noticed his wavering resolve and given his siblings permission to step in, believing that it was best to cut his new love for Satou short before it really hurt him.
Mikale and Satou had developed an unhealthy relationship where they switched between being enemies to friends on a dime, both of them unsure of which side to take. Before her sixteenth birthday, Satou ran into someone who was unaffected by the price of her magic; Shugo Yumeno, a boy she had once saved, recognized Satou and took her home to his mothers. Yui Tamura and Charlotta Yumeno had loved Satou very much and their love had been impossible for even magic to erase. She was given a home and shelter, the things she once 'needed' Mikale for. Mikale realized not only that she didn't need him anymore, but that he wanted to be someone Satou needed. But he did not immediately know how to express this.
In the aftermath of what the agreed would be their last battle, where the winner 'took the loser's life', Satou declared that as the winner she now owned Mikale's life and he was forced to be her friend forever. He accepted this decision, since he wanted that just as much, and was allowed to move in with the Yumeno-Tamura family.

From there, Mikale began living a more positive life. It hadn't been a case of Vinita wanting Mikale to suffer, but she had accidentally become so obsessed with her goals that she took advantage of Mikale's weaknesses. Yui Tamura and Charlotta Yumeno were kind, supportive mothers who took to Mikale immediately and helped him overcome his insecurities. Mikale started going to school and learning to socialize, and learned that he not only had real hobbies but was incredibly talented. He was rewarded constantly and began building the self confidence that Vinita and his own family had taken from him. All of this happiness he credited to Satou, and he became even more smitten with her.

Then his happy new life was wrecked. Rather suddenly. Touka Takamachi returned in Satou's life, and she teamed up with Shugo Yumeno (Charlotta's son, whose room Mikale was sharing) to uncover the plot around Satou and save her. This distressed Fate, who then initiated a plan to have Shugo 'killed'. In the dramatic and psychopathic aftermath that followed, Shugo's half-sister Usao Tamura murdered her mothers and essentially ruined everyone's good day with her creepy brother complex. Touka returned to the MASQ so that she could continue her research.
In the meantime, Vinita declared Satou to be a dangerous criminal and encouraged the magical community to hunt her down and kill her. Mikale and Satou became fugitives, and tried to live under the radar while Touka collected intelligence for them to act on.

For the next six months, Mikale and Satou live day to day lifestyles. Mikale was able to provide them with temporarily housing and consistent food due to both his savings account and connections. He decided to confront his elder sister, Franziscka, about the whereabouts of Satou's younger sister. She gave in, respecting Satou for the positive change she had brought about for Mikale, and was then murdered by Richard Godono when the pair left. Richard and Renae, the remaining Godono siblings, attempted to drag Mikale back to them and were unsuccessful.

Their efforts only served to push Mikale to realize that he loved Satou Kuroneko so much that she was now the most important person in the world to him. This changed the price of his magic, thus allowing Mikale to finally recognize Satou as Samantha and fall even more in love with her. Satou seemed to latch onto this affection, giving Mikale the impression that they were in the stages before dating. The pair agreed to deal with gushy icky romance after they got the game of fates underwraps.

Things began to escalate very quickly. Satou found Masume, only to have Masume killed. She confronted her mother and had to put Horie to rest. Mikale assisted her in all of this and was her primary source of comfort. Shugo Yumeno made a reappearance and tied their fates into a bigger and messier knot as he revealed Masume to be a fake human and helped her be reconstructed. The sisters and Shugo went off to deal with Usao, which was just another tally added to the death count.

Death death suffering death.

Mikale followed Satou through all of it, with perfect confidence that he would get her through her trials and they would earn a happily ever after. So it came as quite a shock to him when Satou herself ripped that perfect happy ending away. When she finally had to end Fate and Vinita's fight once and for all, Satou did it by erasing magic from history. This meant that Satou was never and would never be born.

So excuse Mikale if he was devastated!!! Satou was a jerk too and gave him the promised gushy icky romance answer he had been waiting for, admitting that she probably did love him most of all but... ye know how that hardly matters when she's deadish. Despite Mikale's pleas to somehow disappear with her in a romantic puff of shoujo manga, she ditched him in the new world and made him promise to forget about her.

Mikale was a lying jerk. He couldn't forget her, even when the new world turned out to be a good world. Mikale 'woke up' after 'reliving' his new life in what felt like a dream. His mother and him had no magic and didn't recover from abuse as quickly anymore, but it wasn't that that saved them. Mikale remembered asking for help on the day when he would have otherwise met Samantha. His father was arrested and Mikale now had the strength to help his mother get on without her abusive husband.

In his new life, Mikale excelled at school. He was invited to a conference for gifted young adults from around the world when he was fourteen years old, around the time he had met Touka Takamachi and Masume Sakura in the original timeline. They were both invited to the same conference, allowing Mikale to make connections with the people magic had once brought him close to. Mikale eventually went to a Japanese high school to study abroad, and by the time he was seventeen (when he 'woke up') he had started attending school with Masume, Touka, Ryuu, Holly, and even a sane Usao. Mikale lives a more confident life and makes many friends, and gets to have the childhood that his magical adventures robbed him of.

However, that does not mean that Mikale is completely happy. He continues to hold onto his memories of Satou and his magical life, just as her other close friends do. Though Mikale does get very popular at school, he never considers dating and talks of Satou like she's his Canadian Girlfriend. He admits that he never got over her and that he doesn't plan to. Mikale copes with losing her by writing letters to her and keeping him in a dresser drawer. Mysteriously, the letters always disappear by the time he opens the drawer next.

Canon Standing: Epilogue; I'd like for him to retain his previous DS game memories. Here is his old hub.

Personality:

Mikale Godono is a boy driven by contradictions. The personality he appears to have on the outside typically betrays how he feels on the inside, putting him in a similar slump as his very best friend, Satou. But unlike Satou, who knows what kind of person she wants to be and just can't seem to get there, Mikale is so lost that he doesn't know what he wants to be like... just what he wishes he wasn't.

Many of Mikale's traits are traced back to when he was a child. Mikale "Reed" (as he is technically supposed to be called) grew up in an abusive family situation. However, Mikale is not a person who lets himself be defined by his past. His past self, who kept quiet and suffered for it, is part of what Mikale wishes he wasn't. Rather than let it define him, Mikale has grown from the experience in a strong, self-reliant, and caring person. He is a teenager who is still growing comfortable with who he is. The key word there being still growing.

A starting point is Mikale's confidence... or lack there of. To an outsider, Mikale is a very confident person; he typically has a big grin on his face and seems to be fearless and reckless in his fighting. It always seems like he's got a situation under control and he seems very able to handle himself. Not many people would automatically assume the truth-- that for all of his confident antics, Mikale actually has very little self-confidence. What he has is a lot of confidence in others.
When he's fighting someone or completing a job, Mikale is typically doing so under the orders of someone that he trusts. He may not trust himself, but he is absolutely trusting towards those he loves. This causes Mikale to do many dangerous and reckless things, despite his personal opinions. He doesn't believe in himself and has come to think of his doubt as a weakness and his contradicting beliefs as false. The strongest example of this flaw in action is the way that Vinita turns Mikale into a murderer, ordering him to kill "bad people". Even though Mikale hates murder and thinks it is wrong, he believes that following Vinita's orders is for his own good and that she must know what she's doing. After all, he loves her as family and believes she would never put him in harm's way.

However, this dangerous flaw does have its silver lining. For one, Mikale won't bend his will to just anyone. There are only a handful of people that he ever trusts enough to take orders from. The contrast of his dark childhood to current situation has taught Mikale to be careful about who you trust. He knows his mother had their best interest in mind, but he also knows now that she was not making trustworthy decisions. He will only put complete confidence in someone after deciding they really do know what they're doing. That isn't to say that Mikale cannot personally make judgment errors (Vinita is a bit of a judgment error), but it does mean that he won't take orders just because he likes a person.

Secondly, this trait makes Mikale incredibly loyal. Once Mikale has decided that he trusts someone, he will trust them blindly. He can believe in people even when they don't believe in themselves, despite having a problem doing this for himself. Mikale is very supportive towards those he likes and will believe in their happiness no matter what personal expense it comes at. This ranges from following Vinita's orders to supporting Satou and Shugo's relationship because they're happy together, even when he secretly wishes he could be Satou's boyfriend instead.
Towards those he likes, Mikale is incredibly dedicated and very loving. He's the type of person who is happier to shower those he loves with happiness than be spoiled back. Even if the affection is one-way, Mikale is able to love and care for people without returned affection because "being loved back isn't why I like them." Mikale will go above and beyond to make people happy, provided he is interested them. His mood brightens significantly in their presence and he's addicted to the confidence boost that his loved ones give him, so tends to follow them around and be very clingy--- something that completely contradicts his typical image of a loner. His life centers around the happiness and well-being of his loved ones rather than his own, as evidenced by how he withstood years of abuse for his mother's sake or, more recently, how Mikale is absolutely dedicated to Satou.

Once again, this trait is a double-sided coin. Mikale isn't going to bend over backwards for a stranger, but he will do it without complaining for his family and friends. He works himself ragged and doesn't know when to take a break. His self-sacrificing attitude traces back to the first paragraph of this personality section; Mikale does not know what he wants to be like. He has no plans for what he wants his future to become. Just what he doesn't want. So he doesn't have anything to work towards. The closet thing Mikale has to a plan for his future is to have happy people in it. If he were to ever establish his own life goals then this trait would change, giving Mikale a reason to question if he has the time to help every single person he loves with every single thing, but right now he does not have anything "important enough" to compete with helping his loved ones.

The problem tends to be getting Mikale to like you. He's very picky. Though he can easily make friendships on the surface, it's hard to convince him to get passed that. Mikale will quickly and easily befriend someone for work or reasons that benefit him, but tends to treat those he meets as business acquaintances rather than actual friends. It is because he treats more people coldly than he treats warmly that Mikale often comes off as being a loner and isn't often pegged as a friendly person right off the bat in his canon. He won't make the first move in friendship because he doesn't have the confidence to initiate a proper friendship, nor does he have the drive. He already has people to love and doesn't actively seek to raise the number.
Instead, Mikale needs to be constantly pestered about becoming friends. The more confident another person is that they can be the friends, the more that Mikale will believe it and the more effort he'll make in return. But unless the other party is expressing equal interest, Mikale finds friend making too difficult, too scary, and too time consuming. However, a balance does need to be met; Mikale is a shy person and gets flustered and scared when he's smothered, so too much of a shove from the other side will scare him away. A "scared away" Mikale clams up, gets a bit cranky, and pretends to go need a bathroom break and then secretly ditches you.

In an RP setting, this means that Mikale will start the game with a slightly timid and uncertain personality. It's important to note that the "first impressions" of being a confident love wolf are made in his canon, where he has Vinita to give him orders. But Vinita won't be in the game with him. Mikale will be starting the game with no one to provide his usual guidance. At the start, the first impressions he makes will likely be of the unstable teen who isn't sure what he's doing. He'll need to make a few friends before his surface personality can build up again. Until then, he'll probably seem really uneasy in his new environment and flop around like a confused fish out of water.

Because friend making isn't the only thing that makes Mikale uncomfortable. New things in general put Mikale on edge. If he's in the company of someone that he trusts then he'll be able to try new things, but the moment he's on his own he loses that courage. This quirk causes Mikale to feel more comfortable setting routines and establishing a norm, which he will be quick to find for himself in the game. He'll order the same thing at a restaurant every time and probably only ever visit that one restaurant, unless someone is there to encourage a change. In his canon, Vinita takes advantage of how nervous Mikale is and almost trains him to dislike making his own decisions. In contrast, Satou works hard to encourage confidence so that Mikale will make his own choices and be proud of them. Meaning that in the game, with his canon point, Mikale is still experimenting with decision making and trying to break his shell. Mikale is at a canon point where he is beginning to transition between Vinita's way of crippling him and Satou's help with his recovery.

Satou does a lot for Mikale. By this point in Mikale's "canon" he has benefited immensely from the positive factors Satou (and those he associates with her) bring into his life. Unlike the other people Mikale trusts, who have often used him or had strings attached to their company, Satou asks nothing of Mikale but that he be happy.

The most notable benefit is that confidence that Mikale clearly lacks. While Vinita discouraged Mikale from making his own choices, Satou frequently puts him in situations where he has to decide for himself and is careful to make sure his decisions work out. He is now more likely to shake up his routine and doesn't crumble if his routines are set off track. He lives in a very positive environment now where he is constantly being praised for what he does right and gently critiqued for what he does wrong. Not only does Mikale gain confidence in his own abilities, but he turns old skills into hobbies. For example, Mikale has always been good at cooking, cleaning, and managing his life. Nowadays, he experiments with new gourmet recipes and has turned his domestic skills into a hobby. It's a positive cycle, since he gets praised for what he does and that encourages him to do more. He isn't oblivious anymore either. In game, Mikale will be seeking cr that keeps that cycle positive.

Being quickly rewarded and seeing quick results is a common attribute to most of his preferences. Mikale enjoys cooking because he can quickly and easily judge success and get praise. Similarly, he enjoys school subjects like math and music because of the quick results that he can easily identify as good or bad. The gray area of subjects like art and literature make him uneasy, and he's most comfortable doing things with a clear right or wrong. When it comes to studying right/wrong subjects and taking tests with right/wrong answers, Mikale is very successful and consistently gets excellent grades. Give him an open-ended question, however, and it'll probably be left blank or have a textbook answer in it. He is simply not confident in his personal opinions and afraid of being told his opinion is wrong. The positive influence of Satou has helped Mikale overcome this fear by getting to his teachers, but it is still a hurdle that he has trouble jumping.

Another benefit from Mikale's new life comes from school itself, though he once again credits it to Satou. Mikale has been able to branch out and become more friendly because he's enrolled in school. His socially awkward quirks continue to surface all over the place, such as how he has a hard time initiating a conversation or even carrying one, but he is more active in starting social interactions. He used to seem like quite the loner because he was discouraged from making friends outside of his family. Now that he is going to school and having positive encounters with classmates, Mikale is more willing to not only accept social advances but to actually try to make friends. At his current canon point Mikale is even enrolled in the cooking and tennis club, and he is able to attend club meetings without Satou to support him.
However, it should be noted that this is a work in progress; like mentioned earlier, Mikale is still very shy and scared. Push too hard and, though he'll make some effort not to, he's probably going to run away or at least close himself off.

Finally, Mikale is beginning to realize he can be happy outside of his family. This is a huge step for him, since most of his life has been unhappy and he's justified it with the logic of "at least my family is happy". As earlier stated, Mikale has always lived a life with no future in mind. By moving in with Satou, Mikale has completely abandoned the wishes of his family and he is now in a position where he is technically their enemy. He's made a huge decision for his future by leaving them and pursuing a new life with Satou. It's a big decision and a big deal for him, and has led to him beginning to experiment in making more choices for himself and deciding to do more things for his benefit alone. Mikale is more likely to look at two options and ask himself "What to I want to do?" rather than "What is best for everyone else?".

And okay. She's been mentioned a bunch, so it's probably worth making suspicions a fact; Mikale really likes Satou. Loves Satou. He would do anything for her. Whether he's protecting her, spoiling her, showing her love, anything. In fact, love is a very big deal for Mikale. He spends the start of the series flirting up a storm and being very physically affectionate, but that was because he was told to (Satou flusters to unconsciousness when flirted with). In truth, Mikale is more interested in emotional bonds than physical. He actually does not like to be touched at all and gets very uncomfortable in big crowds where he could get bumped.
So don't touch him unless you want him to be uncomfortable around you forever.

All in all, Mikale is a shy kid who tries to act tough. His act is usually successful and he's learning to turn it into a real persona, but he is still a socially awkward boy at the core who needs some confidence. Really badly. Someone do something.

But the most important fact that I want to stress about Mikale is that for all of his timidness, he isn't a kicked puppy. He's gone down that road and doesn't intend to go down it again. It is unlikely that Mikale will ever speak poorly of those who have hurt or taken advantage of him, canon or no, because he is not that kind of person. He will not walk around trying to get pity from people, but the exact opposite: he will be trying to be stronger, trying to become more confident, and trying not to be the child he was before. He may not be there 100%, but he is moving forward. Not backwards.

Epilogue Addition: Mikale has now lost his two greatest sources of strength and comfort. The magic that made him feel strong enough to defeat his fate is the most obvious thing that he has lost. In the original timeline, it was magic that saved Mikale from his abusive father. It was because of magic that his life was able to turn around for the better, whereas before he struggled and made no real difference without it. So it might seem logical to think that a Mikale without magic would be a hopeless case who goes back to not believing in himself.

Luckily for us all, Mikale has also benefited from magic in ways that last without it. By the end of the series he was beginning to understand that his magic was a representation of his actual potential. He may not be able to make things happen as quickly without it, but he understands that the things he did without magic are not impossible for him to accomplish without it.

He has also benefited immensely from the simple memory of the life he once lived, memories that he still retains. Mikale remembers the experiences that led to him building up confidence and he didn't lose the confidence those now now-erased experiences taught him. It helps that he remembers those events, since otherwise he might have taken steps backward.

His confidence continues to grow, but it's important to note that Mikale is always going to be somewhat timid and shy. It is still easy to fluster him and he still gets unnerved by overly energetic people. However, he is much better at dealing with it now. It takes a lot more to fluster him into silence or get him simply Nope out of a conversation.

And this is thanks to Satou, the second thing missing from his life. Satou only exists in the memories of her close friends now. Mikale and her separated with a promise that he was going to get over her, but he has chosen to break his promise. This is an obvious flaw in his mindset. Mikale will never replace Satou as his most important person and is very determined not to let anyone compete with her in his heart. If he feels that someone is getting too close to him then he'll just push them back. Up until that point of affection he is very kind and generous with others, but once they start getting too close he will begin putting safe distance between them.
Because of this he has lost some of the friendliness that Satou was trying to nurture in him. He is not completely anti-social, but his classmates do notice how he can be a very distant person. Mikale will not open up to other people about his issues (and boy, does he have them,) but can be taught mumbling to "thin air" about his problems.

It is arguable that Satou's nonexistence has cost Mikale some of his sanity. He writes Satou letters about his day and thinks they are disappearing from the drawer he puts them in, but I will never confirm if Satou is actually magicking them away or if Mikale is pretending they vanish on their own. For the purpose of this application, what really matters is that Mikale believes she is still there. He doesn't believe that Satou could ever truly leave him and has chosen to only acknowledge facts that prove she has a spiritual presence in his world. This still makes him seem like a lunatic. As previously stated, he sometimes talks to thin air as if she can hear him. He will buy gifts for her as if she can still somehow interact with them, things like flowers or dolls that she can admire (not clothes, since she cannot wear them, or food.) He also acts as though he has a girlfriend, so won't accept romantic advances and is cautious about not "cheating" on her memory.
In a game setting he will tone his apparent insanity down to some degree since he doesn't believe Satou could world-hop with him. She didn't come last time, so he doesn't expect her to do it this time. Still, he'll recover from depression and loneliness by pretending she is in Hinoto-ri: In this case, at least, he knows that he is just pretending. Back home, he is being 100% genuine.

Because for what its worth, Mikale still loves Satou. He is content with the memories he has of her and she continues to be a primary motivator in his daily life. Mikale tries hard to do new things and live a good life for her sake, even if he does sometimes find himself wishing she was physically there with him. He takes good care of her old friends and looks out for strangers on her behalf. He understands why she erased herself and respects her decision. Mikale wants everyone in her magic-less world to be happy and believe in themselves. In a lot of ways he has adopted the personality traits that he loved about her: he's more optimistic, he tries very hard, and he cares a lot about others (but has set up a "friendzone.")

Canon Powers:

Mikale was once a magic-user, but the epilogue of Game of Fate changes that. Kuroneko Satou went back in time and erased magic from existence. Because of this, Mikale's gene for magic and empathy have both been erased. He is now a normal human, aside from having his memories of a world that has been rewritten. Now all he has to brag about are "normal skills," such as;

● Firearms | Strike{/Pierce?} ) In particular, Mikale is skilled with handguns. He very rarely uses his magic for offensive purposes if he can get away with using un-magicked bullets first. His preference is motivated by the fact that Mikale really never wanted magic to hurt people. The focus of his magic is finding Samantha and he prefers to focus his abilities on that goal. He has not touched a gun in the new world, but he remembers how to use them. He will have to retrain his body for using them properly, but Mikale retains the know-how regarding guns.

● Human Skills | N/A ) His magic aside, Mikale has more human abilities to brag about (though you won't catch him bragging). For example, Mikale is very good at cooking. Very. He can tackle almost any recipe with ease. He has an eye for measurements and could guess them without measuring cups. His eye for detail makes him a perfectionist when he is cleaning. He now speaks English and Japanese fluently.

Canon Weapons|Items:

● Nothing

Canon Allies:

● No one loves Mikale that much.

Canon Baggage:

● Nothing

Persona

[Phobus]
LVL (1) | THE STRENGTH

Fire	Lightning	Earth	Water	Ice	Wind	Dark	Light	Physical	Mind
-	-	Wk	-	-	-	Abs	Wk	-	-

COMBAT SKILLS
►  Single Shot (Inflicts a small amount of Physical damage on one enemy.)
►  Eiha (Inflicts a small amount of Dark damage on one enemy.)
►  Evil Touch (40% chance of inflicting the Fear ailment on one target.(2 turns))
►  Twin Shot (Inflicts a small amount of Physical damage twice on one enemy.)
▷  Muzzle Shot (Inflicts a small amount of Physical damage with a 10% chance of Silence on one enemy.)
▷  Mamudo (20% chance of instant KO from the power of Dark on all enemies.)
▷  Revolution (Greatly increases probability of Critical hits. Universal.)
▷  Ghastly Wail (Instantly KOs all targets who are suffering from the Fear ailment (unavoidable). (Requires a Fear Skill))
★   Shadow Exit (teleports back to apartment)

SUPPORT SKILLS
►  Dodge Physical (Doubles evasion against Physical attacks.)
▷  Mudo Amp (Darkness-based attacks are 1.5 times more effective.)
▷  Dual Shadow (25% chance of the character repeating the attack they just performed. )

Writing Sample
Sample # 1 | Testrun Sample