Senji Kiyomasa

You know, I'm not exactly the best guy in the world.

I've hurt some people, killed some people, I didn't join any revolutions or go out of my way to save the world even when people came and begged me too. I guess because of me some pretty righteous people are dead right now.

So what I'm saying is that I know I'm not the hero in my story, even if I am the one who slew the dragon.

But before you come rushing up to tell me about how the wardens shouldn't be wardens, and how we're no better than the rest of you, and how it's all completely arbitrary where you end up here? Go take a look at what some of your buddies have been saying these last couple of days. About wanting to torture everyone here, and wanting to make everyone despair or whatever, then maybe ask yourself why someone would think that someone like you belonged in the same group as someone like them.

The thing is, If I was an inmate? I think I'd get it. Picking the right side at the end of a life of not being so great a guy is probably the only thing that let me qualify as a warden. So I figure, if you're here, and you honestly think you're too good to be an inmate? The truth is that you're probably just delusional.

[Senji is not affected, he's just kind of a jerk.]

Hey.

So I've got your file now. We should probably talk about why you're here at some point.

[Video click on, and Senji immediately puts down the communicator and picks up a dunbell. Yes, you get to watch him work out while he posts. He is a ~multitasker~.]

So I've been here for two floods now, and... I guess I'm still sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop? Like, yes, being a bird was weird, but once you got used to it it wasn't really actively worse than being a human. Then the turning into kids thing...

[Bicep curl. Bicep curl. Bicep curl.]

...I don't know. I guess I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop and clue me in to what it is about this place that's supposed to be so bad, or what I'm supposed to be doing here or... I don't know, something. Right now it just feels like I've been sitting around in god's waiting room for the last month.

User Name/Nick: Catherine
User DW: /fart fart
AIM/IM: stoptheworld26
E-mail: michael heroin [at] gmail [dot] com
Other Characters: Prefect

BEEP BEEP BEEP TRIGGER WARNINGS: Eye loss and upper extremity amputation are mentioned in this app, and discussed emotionally in samples.

Also it basically spoils Deadman Wonderland like a pro.

Character Name: Senji Kiyomasa
Series: Deadman Wonderland
Age: 26
From When?: After losing his arm in the fight against Toto/Finding out that Ganta's branch of Sin is killing him.

Inmate/Warden: Warden - Senji lands on the white side of morally grey. He’s violent and unsympathetic, and has a bit of an ‘every man for himself’ mentality, but beneath that he's got a strong protective and encouraging instinct, and a belief that people should be allowed to screw up a few times. It just might take a while for this instinct to rise to the surface. Senji is likely to start out, at least, as a pretty bad warden.
Item: Senji's item will be a metal tracking collar, it's pretty clunky, since it contains various bits of electronic and drug related paraphenalia for keeping prisoners in line. Updates about his inmate will be delivered via the medium of speakers set into it announcing any problems in a robot voice.

Senji will probably refuse to wear this for a while, even though he has the key to take it off again now.

Abilities/Powers:
Physical Strength
First and foremost, Senji is extremely strong. He’s a bit obsessive about keeping himself in peak physical condition, and the fact that he’s beyond ripped is something that’s commented on by several characters. In the series he’s shown to be capable of things that would require beyond human levels of strength (shredding punching bags Captain America style, for example), which would suggest that being infected by the ‘Nameless Worm’ has allowed him to surpass the strength of a regular human being.

The Nameless Worm
The Nameless Worm is a mysterious blood infection, which entered the bodies of several people through their either inhaling or unknowingly swallowing shards of crystal which were strewn across Tokyo after a major earthquake ten years before the series begins. It allows those who have been infected to physically control their blood (in the same way as benders control the elements in avatar), as well as do miraculous things with it.

While it's not explicitly stated, it seems that the Nameless worm prevents any other infections from taking hold of open wounds, because the characters in Deadman Wonderland basically wander around with CONSTANT WEEPING LEISIONS and never actually get sick from it.

Those infected with the Nameless Worm are called Deadmen, and the specific ways they have of manipulating their blood, are referred to as Branches of Sin.

Branches of Sin
Senji has two branches of Sin which he uses in the series. He has named them both, because he is the coolest dude.

Crow Claw
Senji is able to basically shape his own blood into scythe like blades, strong and sharp enough to cut through metal, wood, and some kinds of stone. He usually cuts two long gashes in his forearms before starting a fight, and this is where the blades normally come from although it’s entirely possible for him to extend them from anywhere that’s bleeding.

Normally they’re a foot or two in length, but Senji can extend them further either by changing the shape of them, so that the body of the blades are a mesh rather than a solid mass of blood, or by simply willing more of his blood out into the blades. (During one of the OVA’s, He is shown making a blade the length and depth of a full room to scare someone who he’s angry with, before promptly fainting, presumably due to blood loss. In the comic it’s shown that using more of his blood makes the blade stronger, and able to cut through harder things.)

While he tends to use the Crow Claw as a weapon, Senji has also found other uses for it. He once splayed several different blades up from many wounds, and stretched them out far enough to block off an entire corridor, and he has also extended tiny wee claws from his feet, to allow himself to climb up the walls of buildings.

Invisible Black
This is a way of deploying the blades described above. Instead of merely pushing his blood out of cuts him his arms, Senji makes a cut in the back of his hand, and uses his opposite hand to stretch the blade out of it, the way you might drag back the string of a bow. The tension this creates means that when he releases it, he’s able to unleash the blade at the speed of sound.

If this sounds impossible, well, that’s pretty much how everyone feels about it in the comic as well. And Senji is all like: PTHHH NBD WHY ISN’T EVERYONE ATTACKING PEOPLE AT THE SPEED OF SOUND?


Personality:

The first impression we’re given of Senji is that he’s a man possessed of no small amount of bloodlust. He immediately demands that the main character fight him, and refuses to take no for an answer. Senji does love fighting, but he’s not sadistic, and he doesn’t get a rush out of bullying others. What he does appreciate is the sport of a fight. He also enjoys getting a chance to show off his skills, and he likes to see what others are capable of and push them to their own limits. When it comes to fighting, Senji is competitive and hard-headed, he doesn’t like others to interfere or try and define his limits for him, and he expects his opponents to give him a decent challenge. Because he’s so strong himself, he tends to have high expectations of others, and he doesn’t pull his punches or hold back against people, even when they aren’t even close to being up to his standard.

His broad life philosophy is that the world doesn’t pull it’s punches. There is no idealistic place where people get what they deserve and good people don’t die, and nobody gets let of the hook because they aren’t ready, or because they ask politely. When he’s imprisoned in Deadman Wonderland (a privatized prison built on the ruins of Tokyo after the earthquake), he refuses to join up with a band of rebels fighting for their freedom, even though his superior strength would make the success of their escape almost certain, because he doesn’t accept that the world outside is any better than the madness and chaos that exists within the prison walls. He tells them, essentially, that if they don’t think they can do it without him, then they shouldn’t be trying. In his own words: “If you’re weak, don’t show your teeth.”

This philosophy is, however, at least partially influenced by the fact that Senji is pretty institutionalized in Deadman Wonderland. The prison itself was built to house those who are infected by the Nameless Worm, and they are pitted against each other in gladiatorial arenas there. The winners are rewarded with lifesaving drugs, and currency to buy themselves benefits within the prison, while the losers are experimented on, having internal organs and body parts removed for testing. It’s a place where life is strength, and you can have a pretty good existence if you enjoy the fights, accept the inevitability of the torture and experiments, and stay as strong as you can be. You need to suspend your sanity, and embrace the injustice and irrationality of the system in order to survive it happily, and Senji is only one of many prisoners there who’ve done so.

While Senji might have developed this philosophy in order to survive the horror of existence in Deadman Wonderland, he does have a deeper set of values ingrained in him, from before he was sent there. As a teenager, he’d joined the police after the earthquake that had ruined Tokyo, and he was one of very few officers who struggled to restore order to the city, rather than bowing to corruption in the chaos that followed. He first began using his Branch of Sin to fight criminals, until one day his resistance against the gangs led to his mentor and three close friends in his squad being brutally killed. Their deaths, as a punishment for trying to fight the chaos, contributed to his belief that the outside world was no less chaotic and terrible than the prison was, and that the horror of the reality that existed within Deadman Wonderland was the same as the reality everywhere else.

However, the values that his mentor taught to him are still a part of Senji on a deeper level. He’s able to take part in and accept the fights and the experiments as sport and the consequences of losing, but when he sees what he considers to be pure murder taking place, he describes feeling a chill down his spine that he’s not experienced in some time. More importantly, when events begin to escalate in the prison, and he is called upon to help the young protagonist of the Series, he does so. It is here that Senji seems to find an exception to his dog-eat-dog worldview. He remembers his mentor bemoaning what a brat he was, and how much effort the man had to spend letting Senji rely on him. Senji remembers him saying that it’s the speciality of kids to rely on others, and he decides that he is now an adult, and he should be ready to let others rely on him.

The protagonist, Igarashi Ganta, eventually brings out a lot of maturity and protectiveness in Senji, who is initially impressed and amused by Ganta’s irrepressible spirit and refusal to fall in line, and eventually inspired by his refusal to accept the madness of the prison. By the end of the series, Senji’s willingness to sacrifice himself to get Ganta a better chance of survival is brought up, in direct contrast to how he was at the beginning of the series, and it’s pointed out that it used to be enough for him to just see his opponents bleed. Senji’s answer is that it’s Ganta’s stupidity, his honesty, and his inability to accept the irrationality of the prison that changed him.

Even after he’s begun to return to these values, though, when he’s released from Deadman Wonderland, Senji finds himself incapable of adapting to life in the ‘real world’. He’s been living in chaos since he was a teenager, and when he tries to go to job interviews, with his eyepatch and his prison tattoo’s, he’s incredibly uncomfortable and has no idea what to say or how to behave. He’s gotten so used to living in an irrational and violent reality that he doesn’t know how to blend back into civilization.

Awkwardness is actually pretty prevalent in Senji, even while in the prison. He’s a pretty big show off, and in the same way that he considers relying on people to be the speciality of kids, he considers ‘acting all cool’ to be the speciality of adults. Accordingly, he acts cool whenever possible, and is both entertained and impressed when other people do the same. He rates style and appearances pretty highly, and is quite vain when it comes to his own body. His primary reason for working out and training is of course, for his strength, but he is also extremely pleased with the fact that it gives him a ton of muscles, and he has no qualms about showing them off.

In this aspect, he has a pretty major double standard. While it is completely okay for him to strut around shirtless, posing with his muscles etc, he is completely uncomfortable with women dressing revealingly. I don’t believe that he considers it innately evil, or that he has any specific problem with promiscuity (there’s a transgender character who dresses revealingly, and this doesn’t phase him in the slightest), but more that he’s just extremely easily embarrassed, and constantly worried about getting distracted by girls. He has a similar reaction when being hit on by people of the same gender, and in the OVA, is shown responding like this even before he was brought to the prison, when left alone with a girl who he liked.

Basically, Senji is not a very well rounded person, and while he’s utterly confident in some areas, it’s left him completely socially stunted in others.

Barge Reactions: Senji's initial approach to the Barge will be like his approach to Deadman Wonderland. He'll basically tell the wardens that they need to either put up or shut up. If they can't take life on the Barge then they should leave, and if inmates can't take it then they need to put away their toys and be on their best behavior so that they can go home sooner rather than later. He honestly won't think that the floods and the ports are that bad at first, and he certainly won't think that there's anything particularly terrible about the wardens and inmates there.

His strategy as a warden will be... Pretty fucking terrible. Basically, if his inmate is a violent type, then Senji will fight them, if his inmate is not a violent type? Senji will train them to be a violent type. If his inmate is a girl? Senji will only talk to her if she dresses modestly. If his inmate dies? Senji will request a new inmate plz because his is broken. Basically I'm expecting him to get yelled at by other wardens A LOT, but at the end of this learning curve, hopefully his better instincts will win out and he'll be able to really help someone.

History: Wikilink!

Sample Journal Entry: I don't get it, okay? You guys are all in this state of constant stress, you're always taking shots at each other, you're always freaking out about how terrible this place is, but it's always so quiet. [Senji tilts back his head and lifts a hand, like he's dissuading an inevitable argument.] And I'm not saying you don't complain, because that I hear, but out of all the total hard cases in this place, the only person who seems to ever make any real waves? Is the Admiral.

[He drops his hand down again, and leans back, looking restless.] I don't know if you're all weak, cowardly, or if you secretly like it here. I just get the feeling that this place has been oversold to me.

Sample RP:

Senji hadn't really stopped long enough to let himself think about the complications of losing an arm. When he'd lost his eye, there'd been the initial terror and agony, but once it was gone, it was gone. He'd had to adapt quickly enough to the loss, and he'd accepted it pretty quickly as the consequence of losing the fight. It had hurt for a couple of weeks, (The muscles in the socket shrinking and contracting. She'd told him all of this. Taken great interest in telling him all of this.) but once that subsided, his brain had quickly adapted to the new depth perception, and other than losing a little peripheral vision, he was fine.

Losing an arm was supposed to be the same. Physically, he knew he could compensate for it, and he was learning quickly enough to write and eat and lead with his left hand, but... there were still things that didn't feel quite right. His shoulder felt swollen and heavy, and his lost arm still twinged with pains that he knew couldn't be real. He'd forget that it was gone, and go to reach out for something with a hand that he no longer had, only to feel a stab of agony go through it when he realised his mistake.

With his eye, when it was gone, it was gone. Why did his arm have to linger?

Of course, intellectually, he knew that this wasn't Deadman Wonderland, and the easiest way of answering that question was to just get his butt down to the infirmary and actually ask someone. It was just that... practically, having to open up a conversation by drawing attention to his weakness, and possibly imply that he might want some help with something? Well, that was more daunting that Senji would have liked to admit. Still, Senji wasn't the kind of man who liked to be daunted, so he sauntered to the threshold of the infirmary, and stepped forward, rapping the knuckles of his one remaining hand against the door frame.

"Hey." He lifted his hand to gesture lazily at the stump that remained of his right shoulder, "This is new for me, happened a few days before I got here. Thought you might have a leaflet about it or something?"

Special Notes:

Senji lost his right arm a few days before being brought to the Barge. Aside from the obvious problems this will present, it means that he's going to really struggle to cut open his left arm and use his Branch of Sin.

The solution? SENJI WILL NEVER LET THE EXISTING CUTS HEAL. So yes, permanent scabs all over his left arm.