Difference between revisions of "Eien Seida"

Eien was born on Port Island in February of 1992. Her parents, Akira and Kasumi, had high hopes for their daughter, as from an early age she demonstrated a remarkable and active inquisitiveness about the world around her.

At eight years of age she went on a camping trip with several other families. Sitting around the campfire one night, the adults told kaidan -- traditional ghost stories, many of which date back to the Edo period -- and Eien was so terrified by them that her parents were forced to leave the trip early and bring her home...though her nightmares didn't stop. In an effort to give her a way to deal with her nightmares, her father told her that he would take her to the library to take out books about kaidan, because the most frightening thing about the unknown is that it IS unknown, and the more familiar one becomes with something, the less scary it will be.

He would regret his approach. Her interests, previously roaming and all-encompassing, suddenly narrowed to supernatural subjects almost exclusively, broadening gradually to include the occult: magic and all manner of esoteric, hidden knowledge. As she buried her nose in strange books and babbled excitedly, incomprehensibly, about astrological significances and pagan holidays, all her parents could do was look at one another uneasily and hope that it was only a passing phase.

It wasn't. In 2007, at the age of 16, Eien discovered a piece of paper tucked into a book about occult rituals, on which were written instructions for a specific ritual that would summon a powerful spirit to come to her aid. Of course, she couldn't resist; two weeks later, staying at a friend's house near a plot of undeveloped land, the girls went into the woods at three in the morning and performed the ritual according to the page: it had required three days of fasting to prepare, and she was already light-headed when they tromped into the woods.

At the culmination of the chant, Eien collapsed...and met Philemon.

It wasn't more than a month later that she woke up in the middle of the night in the Dark Hour to go to the kitchen and get herself a glass of water, and realized that the world she could see through her kitchen window was...wrong, somehow. Baffled, she went outside -- and was almost immediately attacked by Shadows.

That is when Hekate manifested for the first time. In the middle of fighting the Shadows, Mitsuru Kirijo, Ran Itoh, and Akihiko Sanada, patrolling the dark hour, heard the scuffle and helped to defend Eien. In other circumstances, they might have tried to recruit her after the battle was over...but SEES was still reeling from the loss of Shinjiro Aragaki, and the group wasn't any longer readily taking on new members. It was Mitsuru Kirijo who gave her a quick explanation as to what had just happened to her -- about the Dark Hour, and about her persona. She never had deep involvement with SEES in the years that followed, but she did occasionally see Mitsuru and Ran, always with the impression that they were checking up on her, to see if she was still alright.

She always was.

Gaining a persona did nothing to deter Eien's interest in the supernatural, of course, though by this time her parents had succeeded in encouraging her to devote herself to a mundane and practical course of education. By day she studied the sciences at Gekkoukan High, particularly biology, chemistry, and criminology, and worked part-time as a clerk and barista in a small bookshop and cafe; by night she read ever-and-increasingly more esoteric volumes, some of which her parents would likely have disowned her even for looking at.

To say nothing of what they would have done to her if they'd known that, at eighteen, she summoned a demon, and made a deal with it.

In addition to her ability to scan the targets and environments around herself, she's also telepathic; she can speak directly into someone else's thoughts. She can only transmit words; she CANNOT read the thoughts of others -- it's just a one-way line. In addition, to use this ability she must be in a supernatural location.

Psychometry is essentially the ability to receive impressions left behind by others on objects or in places, provided she has the ability to touch those places or objects. These impressions can come in many forms, like vague ticklings of intuition, visions of events or individuals, sensory impressions, or strong emotions.

Her success rate is affected by a number of things, such as the item or place's importance to the person who held it/walked through it, their emotional state at the time, how many other people have held or interacted with it since then, and how long it has been since the person was there/last held the object, etcetera.

For example: Holding someone's prized locket might reveal a wealth of intense impressions, while picking up a take-out carton they only used once might only give fleeting, vague impressions. Following someone's trail down a rarely used alleyway would be extremely easy, but tracking them through the subway would be extremely difficult, and would be downright impossible during peak hours. In general, it's easier for her to get a sense of emotions and events if they were intense; weaker feelings are more difficult to read.

Items or places impacted by supernaturally-influenced people, objects, and events are easier for her to read than those only touched by mundane of the same, and of course it's much simpler for her to get impressions about people she knows than it is for her to read things about total strangers, since she already has context to make sense of things -- a 'feel' for them.

Using this ability, she can even track someone's location within the city, provided they're within several miles of where she is, and they're within the normal, mundane world -- i.e., not in Mikage-Cho, for instance, or a TV dungeon.

*PLEASE NOTE: I'm putting this on the wiki because it's a neat resource for adding depth to scenes, so I'm trusting people not to use that information IC without actual IC knowledge.

**PLEASE REALLY REALLY NOTE: I am all about upholding consent, and don't intend to force this on anyone's character unless doing so is the result of ICC. I will always ask before posing anything related to this, and I'm probably willing to come up with reasons to foil it in certain situations, if asked (as long as the situation doesn't involve aforementioned ICC). ICly, Eien chooses to respect the privacy of others, as a general rule, so she would only ever snoop if given cause to!

HARD RESET COMMENCING...

• William Blazer --

• Jason R. Butler --

• Ryotaro Dojima --

• Enoha Koinose --

• Yoko Nakashima --

• Hajime Shidou --

• Katsuya Suou --

• Jonathan Wilkes --

(Did Eien know you from school, or growing up on Port Island? If so, you probably belong in this section...)

• Aigis -- Roboto: Aigis seems to turn up to almost every supernatural disturbance that Eien's been present for, and she's always been friendly and helpful. Eien may have inadvertently and unwittingly hurt her feelings, the last time they spoke. ...do robots have feelings? ...was that insensitive too? Damnit.

• Kyo Enda -- ???: She touched him once. It was like becoming nothingness, filled with appetite. It still turns her stomach. But Kyo has turned up several times to help investigate the strange events surrounding the story contest and its strange, self-fulfilling prizes, and while his emotional swings are exhausting and frightening by turns, he can't be faulted when it comes to determination. Plus, for some reason she can't quite figure out, Butler-san has started to pal around with him, so he must be alright. I mean, Jason would never let her be taken away from a fight unconscious in Kyo's mouth otherwise, right? ...right?

• Tohya Kidzuki -- Someone Like Me: She's a telepath, too. Eien's never met another one, but this one endeared herself by willingly protecting Eien in Xibalba. Those are two things that won't quickly be forgotten. Besides, Tohya's been spotting for a cohesive group for far longer than Eien; it pays to know people with that kind of experience.

• Thora Kobayashi -- She's A Brick -- House: One of Mai's best friends, apparently, and another face that constantly turns up in the crowd whenever Eien's witness to some sort of supernatural happening. They helped restore the Inaba shrine...and Thora is, despite her intimidating size, always very kind. She can also hold her liquor as well as anyone else in D4, which is impressive.

• Anzai Mizuno -- Priest-san: Eien once caught a brain full of Anzai's dreams while she and a few others were investigating his disappearance. That -- combined with his insistence on being shirtless every three seconds -- was a recipe for awkwardness, and Eien stammered her way through their handful of meetings. Anzai hasn't been around lately, though...and Eien's seen things in the time since then that makes it hard to remember how she was ever shaken by something so juvenile and innocent.

• Miwa Saitou -- Reflection: The only thing about Miwa that Eien didn't understand at their first real meeting was why it had taken so long for them to meet. Not only is Miwa a spotter, but she's also an expert in certain occult matters -- focusing on the celestial spheres, heaven and earth and whatever pits fester below. It might be stretching things to call them 'alike' overall -- Miwa seems hesitant, cautious, perhaps anxious, or maybe 'troubled' is a better word; Eien is earthy, relaxed, wry, a bit irreverent -- but she took to the young woman instantly. Earth knows no force like that of nerds communing about their chosen obsession. Recently, she's gotten her into a bit of trouble with the business of the stories. Unfortunate, that.

• Tatsuya Suou -- Mr. Serious: The younger brother of her boss doesn't seem like the most personable of people, but after he caught her in the woods in Lunarvale having a spat with a rather unusual opponent, he didn't immediately pass judgement...and he gave her information about an online forum for the exchange of supernatural information. He's hard to read, but he's earned his spot on the list of people Eien considers Friendlies.

• Daisuke Itami -- FFFFFFF

• Shion Katsuragi -- Casualty of War: To Eien, Shion embodies the notion that external appearances are often misleading. She'd thought the female detective to be among the strongest of them...only for Shion to defect to the NWO. What's worse, she did it for love, if Tatsuya Sudou is to be believed.

• Tatsuya Sudou -- BAD TOUCH: Feels like burning alive in a horrible conflagration of agony, shame, and necrotic abnormality. F-minus-minus would not touch again. They once had a decent conversation about the events surrounding Xibalba, but events that followed led her to believe that Sudou is completely delusional, most especially about himself. She may never forgive him for dragging Shion down with him -- though she apportions half of the blame for that state of affairs to the detective, herself.

• Masahiko Irie -- Son of Crime: A young man with some unsavory ties, and a business proposition for her colleagues. She doesn't know quite what to make of him, but he's selflessly thrown himself into the way of significant harm in order to protect her in skirmishes in the past, for which she's genuinely grateful.

NOTE: With a few exceptions for grouping like materials together, these logs run in roughly chronological order. (This section will be under heavy edit for the duration of the plot. If you're involved and you write a cutscene related to the events, please let me know so that I can be sure to include it here!)

• Player Short Story Submissions

• Illuminated Stories *two pending

• Cutscene: The Illuminated Volume of Joseph Weiss

• Log: Once Upon a A Time - 02-03-13 - In which the adventures begin, and people get more than they bargained for.

• Log: Between the Lines - 02-10-2013 - In which Eien gets an unwanted visitor.

• Log: Night Terrors - 02-11-13 - In which Seiichi Miyamoto has a strange experience.

• Log: Outside Interest - 02-11-13 - In which Masahiko Irie searches for answers.

• Log: Kyo Kills Ran - 02-18-13 - In which Kyo Enda grills Ran Itoh.

• Log: Enigma - 02-19-13 - In which Miwa Saitou laments a run of bad luck.

• Log: Sitrep - 02-21-13 - In which Jason R. Butler has a few questions for his young intern.

• Log: Katsuya Is A Meanie - 02-24-13 - In which Jason R. Butler and Katsuya Suou get an unwanted visitor.

• The Nature of a Curse - 02-28-13 - In which Miwa Saitou and Jason Butler talk about stories, magic, and have a really awkward moment.

• Log: It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature - 03-8-13 - In which Jason R. Butler gets holy spam.