Persona Recursion Application— Yue Katou

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OOC Information
Name: Crystal/Rin
Are you over 18?: Yes. By quite a bit!
Contact: sohmamon | sohmamon#2402 on discord | thestudyofbirds [at] gmail [dot] com

IC Information
Character: Yue Katou
Age: 17 years old
Canon: Angel Sanctuary
Canon Point: Volume 14, Chapter 80— Right after Michael's attack and sudden, mysterious retreat, but before the group gets back to Anagura.

History:
Yue Katou was born as the child of an extramarital affair between a woman and her lover, a fact which was kept from him for a good part of his life. His childhood was an abusive one, where his father named him "Yue" hoping that it would make him die quicker, and would alternate between beating and ignoring him. Katou tried and tried to win his father's love, but it wasn't until he discovered a picture of his mother with her lover-- a man whom he strongly resembled-- that he became disillusioned and gave up hope. He became a delinquent, turning to drugs and alcohol and violence to forget all about his problems. He ran in a gang with a bunch of guys, including a guy named Sakuya Kira.

And you'd think that a run-in with Rosiel (an evil angel who pretended to be a dealer and took control of Katou's body with fake drugs), and Katou ending up dying at the hand of Setsuna Mudou (a kid he regularly bullied, ironically) would mean the end of Katou in this story, but you'd be very wrong.

Upon arriving in Hades— the afterlife, Katou was told by the being in charge of the place, Enra-Ou, that he doesn't have enough positive energy from his life to make it into Heaven on his own, and gives him a mission to kill Setsuna when he comes to Hades so that Katou can gain his way into Heaven. He's given a cross-shaped rod that is said to absorb people's power and energy in order to do that.

Setsuna does come soon after that, intent on rescuing Sara, the sister he loves so much and who had died not long after Katou did. (Sara is also Setsuna's girlfriend. Yes, that's incest. The first few volumes are about Setsuna's angst over the incest factor.) Enra-Ou claims that Sara was already in the hands of the executioner of Hades, and that Katou will help Setsuna get to the executioner. Though Katou meant to betray Setsuna, he starts to soften on the boy even while looking for an opportunity to betray him. At one point, the cross-shaped rod ends up in Setsuna's hands in order to fight one of the ghouls roaming around Hades.

As Katou argues with himself because of his softening heart, he runs across a mask that attaches itself to his face and controls him. Under the control of the mask, he starts attacking Setsuna under the behest of a young woman who resembles Sara. (She's Doll, the one in control of the mask.) Setsuna, upon finding out that Katou is under control, calls out for Katou to shake the control of the mask— that Katou has every right to hate him, he won't complain if Katou kills him, but only if it's him killing Setsuna and not a mask. His words reach out to Katou, who manages to shake off the control of the mask partially

Unfortunately, the mask can't disappear entirely, so Katou grabs Setsuna's hand and forces him to stab Katou with the cross rod so that Setsuna can absorb his energy and go on. Setsuna's upset about it, but Katou insists that he's only doing it so that at least one person will remember that he exists, and then his body dissolves into nothingness.

Setsuna unconsciously used time magic at that time, and a tiny fragment of Katou remained attached to the cross rod. It's using that fragment that the executioner that Setsuna was looking for, Uriel, helps Setsuna to rescue Katou from the frozen time his spirit is stuck in. Upon entering Katou's spiritual world, he sees a lot of the worst parts of Katou's life. But even as Katou despairs, Setsuna insists that Katou is strong for making it through all that, and feeds him one of his (Setsuna's) feathers as the reincarnation of the Organic Angel, Alexiel, so as to restore him to... not quite life, he's still dead, but back into not being utterly destroyed. Taking on the feather also means his existence has been intertwined with Setsuna's "debt" as the reincarnation of Alexiel.

Upon waking up, Uriel gives Katou an option while Setsuna is still recovering from his trip into Katou's spiritual world— either he can choose to go back into the reincarnation cycle now, or he can help Setsuna in a battle against heaven or hell. "I'd rather die than run away from someone who needs me," says Katou with confidence, and he goes with Setsuna to help Setsuna escape from Hades and go back to his life. The only way, according to Uriel, is to give Enra-Ou such a shock to his system that he can't stop Setsuna.

So the two go to fight Enra-Ou, Katou once again bearing the cross shaped rod, and split up— Setsuna directly faces of against Enra-Ou, and Katou stands by for Setsuna's word at the Cauldron of Souls that Enra-Ou controls, the place that souls are kept until they are judged. Setsuna threatens to have Katou destroy the Cauldron of Souls unless Enra-Ou willingly allows him to go back to life, but Enra-Ou refuses, and Katou uses the cross rod to destroy the Cauldron at Setsuna's request. Enra-Ou is incapacitated and the way to the land of the living is revealed. Setsuna tries to help Katou as he escapes, but Katou reveals that using the cross rod absorbed most of his spiritual energy, and he can't hold on to his form anymore. So Setsuna escapes, and Katou is reduced to a flicker.

Uriel takes the flicker that remains of Katou and restores his energy, also giving him a new body to use so he's not just a spirit anymore. The body is a realistic reproduction of a human body, only it's made of plants (as plants are one of Uriel's domains). Katou remains with Uriel for a time, until it's discovered that while Setsuna was brought back to life upon escaping Hades, it was in the body of his original incarnation of Alexiel— the body of Setsuna was dead. So Uriel plots to have Setsuna's body restored so that it can be used properly, and sends Katou to go help him with his plan.

Katou goes to Earth first, which is frozen in time, and attacks some of the angel Michael's minions in an attempt to draw out Michael. Then he goes to kidnap Setsuna's real body, running into Kira along the way. They have a brief exchange where Katou tries to show off some of his new abilities due to being partially an angelic spirit now (because of his connection to Setsuna and Alexiel), but Kira brushes it off when he senses Setsuna's spirit in danger and runs off. Katou is irritated, but takes Setsuna's body and drags it off to Earth.

Michael shows up, along with another angel in tow, Raphael, and Sara, who is currently trapped herself in a body not her own, that of the angel Gabriel (also called Jibrille). That's when Katou springs Uriel's trap and they're all sectioned off into a closed dimension, where Uriel manages to get Raphael, as the only angel with the ability to resurrect people, to resurrect Setsuna's body. Upon being brought back to life, Setsuna briefly sees Sara and recognizes her despite her being in the wrong body, but everyone's trying to escape the barrier as it's under attack, so they miss each other. Setsuna calls out to Sara that he'll go rescue her.

Katou, Setsuna, and Uriel go to the lowest layer of Hell, Anagura, where some of Setsuna's friend are hanging out, including a princess named Kurai and, of course, Kira. Katou finds out that Kira is actually the immortal spirit of an unholy sword that had following Alexiel's reincarnations for centuries. Setsuna is then contacted through a communications device Uriel had given him. Zaphikiel, an angel from heaven, sends his subordinate, Raziel, and offers Setsuna a chance to rescue his sister. Setsuna goes off on his own, leaving Katou and everyone else behind.

Setsuna eventually comes back down to Anagura, having not only been succcessful, but also temporarily dumped by Sara until they both mature. Additionally, he's left Zaphikiel to get captured by those in Heaven who would punish him for his rebellion against the current authority there. Raziel, having been left behind in Anagura, is incensed that his mentor has been left, and goes to rescue Zaphikiel. Katou and Kira gang up to kick Setsuna's ass until he stops angsting over fucking up so badly, and the three decide to go to heaven together to rescue Zaphikiel.

In Heaven, the three meet up with Anima Mundi, the group that Zaphikiel had been leading in his rebellion, and manage to convince the group to help them get to the prison Zaphikiel is being kept in. Riette, an angel who is more interested in science than anything else, says he'll only lend his ship if Katou's body is given to him. Setsuna and Kira agree without hesitation, to Katous' irritation, though they say it'll have to wait until after the mission. Riette and Katou hang partially behind while Kira and Setsuna go on to the prison, but when they see trouble, Katou drags Riette along to go help out.

Zaphikiel dies, but not before it's discovered that he was actually Raziel's father, and Katou, Kira, and Setsuna head back down to Anagura. Along the way, they're attacked by Michael— who mysteriously retreats before actually doing any real damage. Confused, the group continues their trip back to Anagura.

Personality:
Katou has a tendency of acting carefree and nonchalant, never holding a grudge because hey--it's the past, what's the point? He even asks Setsuna as much when they meet up in Hades, saying that he's not going to hold a grudge for getting killed by Setsuna. It's an attitude that baffles Setsuna. Katou would rather act cheerfully obnoxious to the people he likes— such as telling Kira in a loud and abrupt way that he'd think Kira was insane if he'd told Katou while he was allive that he was an immortal spirit previously trapped in a sword. To the people he doesn't care about, he'll often just be rude, abrasive, and thuggish— hence why he often beat up Setsuna in life.

Katou doesn't care for social mores, and can be a bit eccentric at times. It's a personality that Kira recognizes traces of from Setsuna when Setsuna returns from Hades, though since Kira didn't know at the time that Setsuna had run into Katou, he dismisses the association as impossible. He'll say and do the first thing that comes to mind, even if it's not always the brightest idea.

If a situation is too much, he'll try to escape it any way he can. It's why he'd turned to drugs in his life, trying to escape from the pain of his family life. He'd even been too high to bother going to his father's funeral, despite Kira trying to convince him that he needed to face his pain. His need to escape also manifests itself by dismissing things as no big deal. "I'm not afraid of death!" he tells Setsuna in Hades, though Setsuna refutes that by quoting back Katou's own words when he died in front of Setusna. It hurt him too much, and he didn't want to face his own problems. As a result of his own childhood, he'd built the façade of his own attitude. He views himself as worthless and unwanted, a feeling that he never does quite shake himself of.

His entire attitude was about escapism, trying to get away from an unjust world. It's not until Setsuna rescued Katou that he starts to try and face his problems head-on, instead of running away. Though Katou never gets a chance to really confront the pain of his childhood, he learns to fight for what he believes in. "I need to fight or my soul will rot!" are words he tells Uriel when the angel finds out Katou is losing his memories. They're an echo of something Kira had once told him when he was too scared to go to his father's funeral, but Katou hadn't absorbed them until Setsuna planted himself firmly in front of Katou and said, "You're strong. You've always been fighting, and you've made it this far."

Once you win Katou's loyalty, he is very tenacious and fiercely loyal to you. It's honestly not that hard to win his loyalty— all you have to do is give him any sort of positive attention. It's Kira's small pieces of attention in life towards Katou that won his eternal loyalty to Kira, all the more reason he became bitter when Lucifer emerged. It's the way that Setsuna rescued Katou from himself and brought him back that won Katou's loyalty to him, and a willingness to die multiple times to help Setsuna in his fight against heaven and hell.

He has been trying to learn to fight for what he wants rather than running away from all of his emotional turmoil. With his friends at his side and Setsuna as inspiration, it's becoming easier.

Etc: I mentioned this briefly up there, but in slightly more detail— Katou is technically, for all intents and purposes, dead. He is, however, using a sort of plant robot body to function. The plant body is indistinguishable from a normal human body down to the capillaries, but it does have some unusual features. Namely, that he has to focus on his own appearance from life in order to retain his normal looks. That being said, he can take on the appearance of other people by focusing on them.

Additionally, his connection with Setsuna has made him part angel. The powers mentioned above mainly are shown as the ability to manifest three white, feathery wings at will. Supposedly he has the ability to manifest other astral powers, but they never came up in canon, so I can't say what they would have been.

I recognize that these are powers he won't be starting out with in the game, but thought it worth mentioning as a possible future ability regain.

Persona
Name: Marchosias
Branch: Combatant! Katou would be possibly the worst Navigator in the universe, and he'd hate it besides.

Type(s): Physical, Nuclear

Style(s): Protector

Passive: Offensive

Writing Sample (Writing samples can be threads from the test drive, a 300+ word sample based on the test drive prompts, or a recent (less than a year old) thread sample from another game that clearly shows us the character's voice.)
► Katou's Test Drive Thread; Toplevel
► A Test Drive Thread; Using Prompt 3
► A Test Drive Thread; Using Prompt 2