Rui Onishi/Personality

A Father's Love

The Alpha and Omega of Rui's entire being is her father: Shinichi Onishi. He is quite literally the center of her universe, and she believes herself as existing solely as an extension of his will. Her love for him knows no bounds, and her loyalty is the single absolute throughout her life; she simply is incapable of thinking one wrong thought toward the man. She is in a continuous, tireless journey to please him, wanting nothing more than to live up to her father's expectations. She will do anything for him. She is prepared to kill for him. She has even tried dying for him. Everything she has, and is, belongs to him, and all of this obsessive devotion stems from a single belief: she worships him because she believes he is the only person who loves her. Apart from her father, Rui has little of an identity of her own. She is his -- his child, his blood, his weapon, his tool -- and has no desire to be otherwise. Her love for her father is her identity. Thus, she is resigned to the reality that she will never be a normal woman, she will never find her place in a normal world, and she would never be easy to love. On the contrary, Rui knows no one could ever love her... no one except for her father. Love is a frightening thing for Rui. One of her greatest fears would be to lose her father's love, and to realize that she is truly an unloved person, and alone in the world. The product of being raised by a particularly dispassionate father, who would never once confirm any feeling of love for her, much of her personality hinges on this deep insecurity. Thinking herself as so gravely impossible to love, she has dedicated herself to ensuring that at least one person will continue to love her, even if he's never declared it himself. So her life has been a gradual series of sacrifices to remain in her father's favour, perhaps working fervently as well to hear him one day tell her that he loves her, if just once.

A Fractured Daughter

As a result of someone who has gladly refused to develop into a complete person, Rui lacks for many emotions. She is certainly not unfeeling; on the contrary, she has an amazing capacity for passion, to love and to hate, but she has only allowed that passion to turn on a single source. She is ambivalent, even apathetic, to the rest of the world, having never kept friends, hobbies, or even the desire to stray from her father's side. Now that he is imprisoned, and appears to be remaining that way for the rest of his life, Rui's reality has undergone a sea change. She is without his constant presence, and her unerring devotion is only allowed to see him once a month for an hour at a time. Even though she remains his will, following the man's every order, she is finally on her own. She has to integrate with society. And this loud, alien world both confuses and disorients her, and Rui's incomprehension of the lot of it further divides her from society at large. By all appearances, she seems normal, but she knows she is not, and will never be. To become normal would be for her to reject her father and stop loving him, a notion that is simply inconceivable to comprehend.

Silence Becomes Her

Rui's silence is somewhat symbolic of her temperament: she is patient in her manner, unassuming, and mysterious. Her sense of mystery may be her most palpable trait -- when one cannot speak, they cannot tell the truth or speak any lies. They can neither confirm nor deny, neither educate nor manipulate. She keeps a strange sort of innocence in that respect, all the more attested by her general naivete of the world at large. Society's little details are going to render her looking like a deer in the headlights more times than not. The cost of permanent silence has also made Rui a very inward person. Her 'voice' only exists in her thoughts, and when she is thinking can she only hear herself. As a result, she thinks quite often, if not too much, able to spend hours wrapped up in her own internal monologue and the thoughts in her head. She's become quite analytical, a person who is fated to think and over-think the same constructs over and over again. She even has mental conversations with her own thoughts in her own last means to exercise her lost voice.

Patience is Skin-Deep

Though she is not genuinely shy, she's a consummate loner, and seems content to live in the silence that has been forced upon her. As a result of her muteness, however, she has an expressive face and a transparent way of conveying what she cannot say. Despite any stoic manner she'd like to assume, her face can reveal her as startlingly as a silent film, when those black-and-white actresses of years past had to have faces which transcended spoken word. Her over-expressiveness can almost get comical at times, and her facial tics and nuances are many. She's learned a new language in her silence, her face and body language trained by years to convey what her voice cannot. She is a creature of contradictions, appearing gentle and forbearing at some times, but also dangerous and aloof at others, and with a deep capacity for ruthlessness: both in a cool, surgical manner and in a fiery, tempestuous display of vengeance. Rui isn't without her temper, and she can lose it. The woman at her most wrathful could only be awakened by mentioning her father. Speak disrespectfully of him, insult him, dismiss him, and her reaction will be sudden and terrible, a destructive impulse only able to be soothed by fresh blood. Threaten him, and there may be nuclear fallout to deal with for the next several generations.

A Stayed Hand

Despite all that, Rui does not appear to have an innate disposition toward violence. And though her father raised her to be a warrior, wanting to test another curious question if enough exposure to war could make someone forget their soul... Rui's nature is far from aggressive. She does not try to seek out combat, does not enjoy participating in it, but she will readily engage anyone to defend herself or her father's wishes. She is so habituated to violence that she does not even have too much inhibition against murdering -- even though she has yet to take a life. Deep down, she does not like the thought of killing, but she understands the necessities taken to protect one's family. In which case, there is no 'good' and 'bad' for Rui. There is only 'what her father wants' and 'what her father has no need for.' His desires are her raison d'etre, and she has no ethical interference in executing his every whim. There is some reluctance in Rui's violence, however. While she may appear like some cold machine, she does not take pleasure in murder, nor does she relish the thought of taking innocent lives. Of course, someone who intentionally poses a threat to her father immediately loses any 'innocence' they had in her eyes. A creature also born out of her father's pride and hubris, Rui shares his distaste for cowards. She refuses to condone the actions of cowards -- taking hostages, exploiting the weak, or threatening the lives of the innocent -- especially children. And when she chooses to be violent, there is a certain honesty about the way she fights; she prefers her battles one-on-one, direct, and to the point.

Blood Divides

Rui is generally dismissive of people, though she can't resist being somewhat curious of them -- especially those people who would try to confuse her world views. She doesn't understand them by and large, and has ignored the little intricacies of human behaviour for most of her life. For the most part, people other than her father have let her down, and she's left more than a little guarded, not quite the type of person desirous to have friends or even create a relationship that could supplant her father's role in her life. Even then, she can admit to herself that she is lonely. With her father at her side, she had a strange sense of loneliness that even all of her devotion could not exorcise. And now, with him imprisoned and far away, that feeling is getting worse. To Rui, family is everything. She fervently believes that there is nothing more important than family ties, having people who will love you unconditionally, people who mean so much that you will do anything, become everything, to make them happy. Without family, a person loses all meaning, forced to walk through life as an empty husk. Most frightening of all, the family bond cannot be mimicked, and strangers cannot replace blood ties. This notion makes the idea of 'family' all the more precious and tragic, something that needs to be protected and cherished at all costs because it cannot last forever. Her greatest fear would be to ever lose her father.

Two Worlds Too Many

Despite her own immersion into the supernatural world, it too does not engage her as it should beyond her purpose. Rui has embraced its endless possibilities as just another tool that could benefit her father. If it is his desire for her to learn more about it, then she shall. Personae, however, Rui cannot find herself so easy to dismiss. She can't help but be fascinated by them, and is utterly delighted by her own -- her Persona represents her single most important success, and that her ability to gain one had made her father the most proud he had ever been. It was the catalyst that had him take her into his confidence, when she could finally prove to him that she had both the strength and the will to fulfil his expectations.

A New Man In Her Life

And she intends to dutifully serve every single one of his commands to the end. The most recent of those commands, of course, has been Shinichi's designs for her to work for Daisuke Itami, serving the man as his own personal assistant and bodyguard. She accepted this command without question. And she still does not question it, though by all means she should. By all means, she almost wants to. Rui cannot understand Daisuke Itami. As much as she tries to ignore him, he has this deliberate way of getting under her skin, fraying her last nerves, and almost -- almost -- wishing back her lost voice so she could just scream in frustration and indignation once and for all. But, for all the times she loses her temper, Rui protects Daisuke's life with her own, deeming him precious. He has to be for her father to ask his only child to guard him. He has to have some great purpose, and even though she isn't sure what it is, she won't question it. She cannot question it. For now, Daisuke has become the most important person in Rui's life -- second only to her father. She will continue to protect him for as long as her father wills her to, possibly for the rest of her life. Even if it kills her. Or ANNOYS HER TO DEATH.