app for jigoku-cho

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PLAYER INFORMATION

PLAYER: Rinne
ARE YOU AT LEAST 18 YEARS OLD?: yes!
CONTACT: spoilers or pm!
CHARACTERS PLAYED: n/a

CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME: Natori Shuuichi (Eastern order)
CANON: Natsume Yuujinchou/Natsume's Book of Friends
CANON REFERENCE: Here's his character page on the NatsuYuu wiki and here's a summary of the series in general!
CANON POINT: mid-chapter 103, after he and Sensei are attacked by the human-shaped sealing vessel and Natori drops Sensei off for safe-keeping.
CRAU HISTORY: N/A
AGE: 23
APPEARANCE: Natori is an exceedingly handsome (like, movie-star/model handsome, which is why he's a movie star/model) young Japanese man with naturally blonde hair and red eyes. He's slim, around average height (175cm), and superficially fit without any significant muscle. He wears a pair of non-prescription glasses to help him see spirits more easily. There is a gecko-shaped youkai that lives on his skin and roams around on his body like a living tattoo. At his canonpoint, in addition to the normal exorcist materials he had stashed away on his person (spell paper, paper dolls, and wards in every conceivable pocket in his light jacket, pants, and shirt, which presumably won't be coming with him to youkai hell!!) he is also carrying the main character's schoolbag. The bag should contain the titular Book of Friends, a supremely powerful collection of pages containing the names of hundreds of youkai, all of whom are bound to the control of whoever has the book. This will be missing from the bag because it's ridiculously overpowered, and also to facilitate:
CONTRACT PAYMENT: Because Natori's assuming that the NPCs have confiscated the Book of Friends from the bag he was carrying, his most urgent wish would be to get it back undamaged and unused. He wouldn't say so, but the idea of leaving such a powerful artifact in the hands of anyone except maybe its rightful owner is, like, cataclysmic to his mind, and doubly so to leave it in the hands of a bunch of feuding youkai yakuza. If this doesn't work as a contract payment (for one thing, it's not properly his, just something he's got on him at his canonpoint, or if because special items don't come into the setting at all versus characters being denied access to them), his more long-standing desire is the removal of the lizard youkai along with any associated curse it might have.

QUESTIONNAIRE:
What does family mean to you and who do you consider a part of your family?
Family is primarily a burden to be carried. Natori's perception of 'family' is intimately tied up with his status as the only active member of the Natori exorcist clan. The Natori name is well-known in the exorcist world, and not in a good way; they're considered a family of cowards who abandoned the business when their powers died away, and ever since live in fear of youkai taking revenge against the current members of the family for things their ancestors did. As a result of that fear, Natori's family loathes any connection with youkai, and they view Natori's ability to see them as a misfortune brought upon the house for attracting the attention of the youkai. Natori was alternatively accused of trying to scare the family for attention and of being the root cause of anything that went wrong in the household (his mother getting sick and dying, his grandfather's declining physical ability). This aversion was so strong that the extended Natori family stopped having children out of the fear that the next child born might be able to see them as well. Therefore, Natori's feelings about his family are inextricably tied up with his resentment over the rejection and emotional neglect from his living family members, but also a sense of defensiveness and pride in terms of trying to redeem the Natori name in the eyes of the exorcist community. Ultimately, being a Natori is what got him into the mess that his life is, but it's also what grants him access to the tools and techniques he uses in his exorcist career. The Natori family could have easily been incorporated into a stronger active exorcist clan for protection in exchange for turning over their techniques; Natori Shuuichi as an individual could also have made that decision to join up with a house with more support. He chooses to remain independent because 'family' as a concept is important to him and is something he wants to revitalize. At the same time, he sees this as a burden that he could ultimately walk away from if he so chooses, unlike the other characters in the series who are beholden to other people and stronger legacies than he is, such as Matoba's duty to his extended clan and Natsume's inheritance of the Book of Friends.

If asked about who he considers a part of his family, Natori would name the people related to him by blood as the factually correct answer. The exorcist community recognizes the adoption of heirs from outside the bloodline as part of the clan, but Natori has made no real moves to follow that path outside of briefly considering taking the main character of the series on as an apprentice. Nor does he consider his shiki to be part of his family; they're partners, he trusts them more than he trusts any relative of his, and the fondest memories of his childhood are even associated with one of them, but he conceptualizes them as something inherently different from humanity. So basically: he has no found family and no good relationships with his blood family, so he has to fall back on the blood definition in order to have an answer to this question at all.

An enemy of your faction has asked for a meeting, proposing a truce of sorts to deal with a greater threat. On one hand, there is indeed a threat at hand, but on the other, this person double-crossing you is just as likely an outcome. Do you agree to the meeting? Do you trust them?
Natori would agree to go, but wouldn't trust them! This is the sort of situation where having his shiki or full use of his paper dolls would be helpful, since he would ideally use them to spy on the enemy before the meeting to see if they're planning something. He'd also want to find out why now, and why him. He's been offered unpopular or risky jobs in secret before so he and his relatively unimportant clan could take the blame for any failure; is he being approached because the enemy thinks he'd be easily manipulated or fooled? That's not to say he'd automatically assume it was a set-up directed at him specifically! It could very well be that they have a good reason for coming to him with this-- a particular skillset, a personal connection with another key player, something along those lines-- but he'd want to figure it out, in advance of the meeting if possible. Depending on what he's able to turn up, he'd decide whether he wants to go alone or if he should inform someone else about the offer. There could be situations where the benefits of going alone outweigh the obvious risks of a setup or ambush, and not just for the potential clout Natori could get within his own faction if the truce is successful! This would especially be the case if the greater threat tied into his morals; if what's at risk is the lives of innocent people and he thinks getting his faction involved would take an unacceptably long time, he'd likely go. That said, he's not the sort of person who would walk into a dangerous situation alone just so he could take all the credit for any potential success, and if he wasn't personally invested in the matter at hand he'd be more likely to simply turn the question over to his superiors and wash his hands of it.

Your Faction leader, not just your boss but the leader, has asked you to carry out a hit. The target is a non-affiliated public leader, well-liked by the people of the city. Do you carry it out? Why or why not?
Likely not! Natori isn't inherently opposed to exorcising a youkai the way he would be if he were asked to kill or injure a human (he very firmly places humans above youkai in terms of importance in all circumstances), but he isn't comfortable exorcising youkai who aren't actually threatening harm to humans. At least two of the three shiki who he has contracts with (we only have two of their backstories, but it's likely the case for all three based on the pattern) were in positions where they wanted to be exorcised, and Natori proposed that they work for him instead. In particular, his first shiki contract was with a youkai who had been abandoned by her previous master for being "too ugly." Natori came across her when he was in high school, and she offered to teach him how to deal with a possession if he'd exorcise her in exchange. Natori refused because he couldn't exorcise youkai who haven't done anything wrong-- not just as a moral standpoint, but because he also couldn't work up the courage to do so if he wasn't clearly protecting someone else through his actions. He considers a youkai's life to be less important than a human's, but it's not unimportant, or at least not to the point where he would go out of his way to cause them pain if they haven't done anything to deserve it.

With this in mind, he'd balk at the idea of being told to exorcise a youkai who appeared to be doing well by the people of the city. He'd be doubly uncomfortable at the idea of doing it for the benefit of another youkai, especially if he didn't know what the faction leader stood to gain from it. He doesn't like being used as a tool for someone else, whether human or youkai, without being aware of exactly what he's getting roped into. That said, he'd still say yes, under the idea that he's preventing someone else from working on it so long as he's ostensibly assigned to it, and he'd spend as much time poking around trying to figure out why he's being asked to do this as he would collecting facts on whether the target "deserves" to be exorcised.

You've worked with your Faction awhile now and you feel like the reward of your contract is within reach. But at the last moment, you are told you have even more service to pay beforehand, an obscure clause in the contract being exploited to keep you under your boss's thumb even longer. Your Faction Leader hasn't spoken on this, and might be able to dispute it. Do you go to your leader? Do you argue the dispute yourself? Do you begrudgingly accept the additional work? Something else?
As mentioned below, Natori is used to making contracts with youkai and thus treats them extremely seriously, so first of all this nerd absolutely read every page of that contract when it was signed. (Whether he could do anything about unfavorable clauses is another story, but he's at least aware of the clause being exploited here!) Natori would first try to argue the dispute himself under the theory that he could go above his boss's head to the faction leader if it didn't work. He'd stay polite about it, but in the cutthroat way that all exorcist business is conducted: firm, passive-aggressive, everyone smiling while knowing the other is trying to screw them over and that backing down is as good as accepting defeat. He'd lean heavily on the idea that, why, someone might take this the wrong way and think that the faction isn't honoring their contracts, and the last thing either of us would want would be if people lost faith in the faction's trustworthiness, etc. Contracts are a really big deal in The Hit Series About Ayakashi Contracts! He'd take the same approach if escalating it to the faction head, just with more of the emphasis on how it'd be a shame if people thought poorly about the faction because of the actions of this boss, a single bad actor in an otherwise trustworthy and reputable organization.

POWERS & ABILITIES: Natori was born with the ability to see youkai (often used interchangeably with the term 'ayakashi' in the series). His ancestors were exorcists, but the ability to see and interact with youkai died off generations ago and the family is now considered a defunct exorcist clan. Natori taught himself exorcism skills out of the books and other materials left behind in his family's storehouse. These skills include:

Exorcist spells: Natori can set up wards around buildings or blocking off paths that prevent harmful youkai from coming in. He can use his spiritual energy to injure, exorcise, or seal youkai, typically by reciting a spell and either hitting them with a paper ofuda (a Shinto talisman with, in Natsume-verse, illegible mystical characters written on them) or by drawing complicated arrays with the same mystical characters on the ground and luring youkai into the circle. To seal a spirit, he needs to have a vessel to hold it, and typically uses special pots. The method of drawing the circle doesn't matter; he can use ink or chalk, or trace them out on the ground with a stick. Natori's spiritual abilities are fairly strong but dwarfed by that of other characters in the series, and he wears a pair of glasses with clear lenses when he's working because it's easier to see spirits through glass. I'm assuming he won't be able to perform these spells unless he regains them.

Contracts: He can form contracts with spirits that are capable of understanding speech; these youkai agree to work for him until the contract dissolves. He currently has three youkai servants ('shiki') who have contracts with him, but they will not be coming with. They appear when Natori calls their names unless prevented by a ward/protection spell/etc that blocks outside spirits from coming in (aka, like in the game setting). Natori often uses his shiki to scout the surrounding area for danger, talk to other spirits to get information they wouldn't give to a human, and orders them to accompany and protect other characters. The youkai can talk back to him, are not automatically compelled to obey his orders, and are capable of moving and acting on their own, but he definitely exerts a large degree of control over them; other exorcists use their servants as bait for larger youkai, bind their servants to objects and abandon them when they've decided to move on, or force unwilling spirits into contracts through trickery. The benefits for this sort of arrangement on the youkai's side is that contracts are known to strengthen both parties; the longer their working relationship lasts, the stronger the connection between the two of them grow, and they each grow stronger alongside that connection. Youkai could also agree to join with an exorcist for protection (less likely to get attacked by other ayakashi if you're tied to an exorcist!) or out of their own moral desires to stop dangerous ayakashi from attacking humans. Technically, these contracts are all done under a pseudonym that Natori gives the shiki when forming the contract, since using their real names would require a staggering amount of spiritual power (thought to be impossible for a human, until Natori learned what the title of his series was called) and would strip them of free will.

Paper dolls: The Natori clan specializes in paper magic. Natori makes frequent use of magically-animated paper dolls, which can fly, track targets, and deliver fairly weak defensive strikes when far from Natori's range (they seem to have no problem operating across the city from him). He often writes messages on them to send to other people and can receive messages back the same way. Individually, they are still normal pieces of paper -- they become useless in the rain and they're prone to catching fire if they come into contact with too much power. Natori can chain them together to serve as a rope, binding, or for spells; for this, they have to be in close proximity to Natori, but they're stronger than they would be alone. Natori is capable of making use of any type of paper in a pinch, but washi paper works better.

The Gecko: It's more of a supernatural birthmark than an ability, but there's a black gecko-shaped youkai that lives on his skin like a moving tattoo. It's normally only visible and audible to people who have some sort of ability to see spirits, but I'm assuming that's a moot point here due to the nature of the game. It can't be communicated with, controlled, or interacted with in any way. If you were to put a hand on it it would feel like any other part of Natori's skin. It roams freely around his body (and makes a gross slithering noise when it moves) with the exception that it's never gone on his left leg; another exorcist guesses this may be a sign that Natori will lose that leg in the future. As one could imagine based on his contract request, he loathes this youkai with every fiber of his being. He's concerned that there's a curse associated with it, though as far as we know it contributes no benefits or drawbacks to him and is purely aesthetic.

Sorry for sparkling: On the non-magical front, Natori is also an up-and-coming popular actor as his day job. He mostly appears in romances as the leading man, and sometimes flippantly turns on his 'sparkle mode' (I mean, sparkles appear on screen, but they're probably not literally there) where he smizes at the invisible camera and turns up his "effortless" romantic charm. In other words, he's good at hiding his emotions, deflecting conversations with his stupid heartthrob act, and playing a role.

SUITABILITY:
Natori is a character who has been haunted by youkai for as long as he could remember in a world where youkai can and do kill or maim humans (or kidnap them to keep as pets and feed off of their misery). He's no stranger to scenes of gore and violence when youkai are involved-- or the humans who regularly deal with youkai, for that matter. He's deeply involved with the exorcist community, which operates as a yakuza-like power structure with feuding families using underhanded methods to gain power and control. He has to unplug his landline when he sleeps because rival exorcists leave magic curses on his answering machine. He once got tied up in a grudge match between exorcists that led to Natori being stuffed in a cave to serve as a blood sacrifice to wake up a sleeping ogre sealed within it. In particular, Natori has lived with the near-certain knowledge that he's going to lose a leg one day, and yet he continues to work in the exorcist field to stop a worse fate from befalling other people. This includes taking jobs where he's asked to exorcise a god of failed harvests should he emerge victorious in a fight with the god symbolizing good harvests in order to prevent crop failures in the nearby community-- a job that could easily mean his death at the hands of a kami should he fail to exorcise it himself. In the service of that protection, he's not going to be picky about laws; as far as he's concerned, exorcist laws are there for a reason (because people will get killed if they aren't followed), while normal human society laws like "don't steal mail" or "don't stalk people" are very bendable in the grand scheme of things if he can tell himself it's for the right reason. Also, he's a sex symbol who stars in a bunch of romance dramas!

FACTION SUITABILITY:
Shuten:
While Natori doesn't seem like a potential candidate for Shuten on his face (very blasé about telling little white lies and not in any way a physical fighter), he believes wholeheartedly in the idea that those with power have a responsibility to protect those without. He became an exorcist in the first place because he was inspired by the actions of two less powerful exorcists he'd seen around him as a teenager. One of these men had nearly no abilities left but spent his dying days watching over the Natori house against the express disapproval of Natori's family in order to repay a debt he felt his ancestors owed to the Natori; the other had poorer sight than Natori did, but was a mentor in terms of how he worked with the tools he did have as a way to help people around him. He also takes contracts and agreements very seriously. While he's accustomed to holding back the truth or purposefully allowing people to take the wrong impression from what he's saying in minor things (especially when talking to people who can't see youkai and avoiding what they don't need to know to keep them safe), he takes a different approach when it comes to official arrangements. He's only able to maintain the contracts he has with his shiki because his shiki trust him to hold up his side of the bargain in the first place. The tagline of this series is "the hit series about ayakashi contracts," so there's a lot of emphasis on promises and agreements and treating them seriously.

Tamamo:
Natori understands the power of keeping people entertained: he's a professional movie star specializing in romance dramas. He can project that sort of persona effortlessly in order to give people what they want to have a good time-- not just turning out the performance he needs on set to get his job done, but also playing it up for fans in public. His acting/modeling roles enable his financial independence as an exorcist who isn't coming from an established house. When Natori was still in high school, he had to sneak into the family storehouse to study exorcism techniques against the wishes of his family, and it's very likely that the funds from his acting career are what enabled him to support himself on his own and thus also expand his work as an exorcist instead of being stifled by the disapproval of his father. The entertainment industry is thus closely tied to freedom in Natori's mind, but he also gets a similar relief when he first enters the exorcist world and realizes that he doesn't have to lie about what he sees for the first time in his life. He'd be an incredible host-- he can whip out romance-movie flirting without any hesitation or embarrassment, and like. he's hot, if you ignore the lizard (or if you're into that; let your freak flag fly, and all that.)

Sutoku:
Natori's exorcism skills are entirely self-taught based off the accumulated research of his ancestors. The Natori family techniques are more than just trade secrets; they're the only thing Natori has to establish his worth in the exorcist community and make some claim to his birthright, and they're what enable Natori to protect people at all. He has no qualms about acting in underhanded ways to control the flow of information: he sends his shiki to ferret out what Natsume is hiding from him so he could best decide whether it's something Natsume shouldn't have, he steals and destroys a letter that Matoba sent to Natsume to prevent Natsume from reading it, and he uses his paper dolls to follow characters around and intervene for their protection in subtle ways when necessary (serving as a brief flicker of a distraction or something to slip over to let the characters get away). When he finds evidence that two opposing factions are having some sort of secret communication, he has his shiki stalk the parties involved so he can determine if they're planning something dangerous, and then delivers news of their alliance to the Matoba family once he figures out what's going on. His powers are well-suited for information-gathering, as is his 'cover' as an actor getting him into places and conversations he would otherwise not be privy to. He also greatly relates to the struggle of a small, less-powerful house resisting the takeover/influence of the larger ones with more resources in order to maintain his own judgment and independence, and would be a vocal supporter of that strategy within the ranks. Plus, who better to work the theater than an actor?

Enma:
Natori understands the need for stability, especially when dealing with volatile creatures like youkai. He takes action in canon to rat out the burgeoning alliance between two families who oppose the Matoba clan because he believes that, if left to become a serious challenge to the existing power structure, the resulting conflict and political infighting would leave the exorcist community vulnerable to collapse and prevent them from doing the work that actually matters (i.e., saving people). As distasteful as the exorcist community can be with their power struggles and internal political maneuvering, it needs to exist to hold back the chaos that youkai could cause on the human world. Notably, Natori does this despite disagreeing with the Matoba's methods on a personal level; a strong, united leader whose policies he dislikes is preferable to the instability of a power vacuum. His daily work as an exorcist is constraining youkai who are running amok, so his skillset is entirely designed around methods of restraining them. Also he's a big nerd who likes books and paperwork (literal shuffling-through-pages-of-notes-and-reports, not just paper magic) and would make a surprisingly good administrator.

SAMPLES

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