Exit Void Application

[bewormed]

player.
NAME/HANDLE: Guessy
PERSONAL JOURNAL: rickroading
ARE YOU 16 OR OVER?: Yes
CONTACT: guessy on Plurk.
OTHER CHARACTERS: None


character.
CHARACTER NAME: Kariya Matou
SERIES: Fate/Zero. Kariya's profile is here. Be advised, MAJOR SPOILERS THROUGHOUT, including for Season 2 which (at time of writing) hasn't started yet.
CANON POINT: After of Episode 14, (SEASON 2 NOT-QUITE-SPOILER: post losing to Tokiomi and being left for dead). The idea is that he will arrive in EV thinking he has died.
AGE: Unknown, but presumably somewhere in his twenties. Call 25 as a ballpark figure. It's known he's been estranged from his family for about 10 years.
APPEARANCE: Kariya appears older than he actually is, with grey hair and a ruined face thanks to Crest Worms (see below). This is fairly recent; his profile has pictures.

PREVIOUS GAME HISTORY: None.

PERSONALITY: At his heart, Kariya is a kind man, who isn't interested in magic and only wants an ordinary, happy life free from strife. This can mostly be attributed to his father, Zouken, who can charitably be described as the most despicable not-quite-human on Earth. Kariya, disgusted with his methods, left the Matou family of magi 11 years ago. Ironically, Kariya was the only member of the Matou family with any potential for magecraft, so his leaving doomed the Matou family line. He never practised magecraft during this period and simply lead an ordinary, mundane life. Kariya does not hate magic per se; Magi in the Fate/ series tend to be self-centred bastards only interested in gaining knowledge a protecting their secrets no matter the cost.

He returned 10 years later after discovering Zouken had adopted the daughter of a childhood friend (Sakura and Aoi respectively, both of the Tohsaka mage family), and was using her to restart the Matou's stagnant bloodline in a disturbingly literal fashion. Using his familiars, Crest Worms, he was converting Sakura - still a child - to use the Matou's brand of magic, an extremely painful process. He made a deal with Zouken; Zouken only wanted to win the Holy Grail to achieve immortality, so Kariya bartered to retrieve the Grail in the 4th Holy Grail War in exchange for Sakura's release. To make up for his lack of training, Zouken also implanted Crest Worms into Kariya, to boost his magical abilities and make him a mage strong enough to be a Master in the 4th Holy Grail War. This process took a year, and is responsible for the drastic change in his appearance.

Another dimension to Kariya's situation is his relationship to the Tohsakas, the aforementioned magi family Sakura and Aoi are part of. Aoi was a childhood friend of his, until she married Tokiomi Tohsaka. She had two daughters; Sakura and Rin Toshaka, who knew and cared for Kariya a great deal, calling him 'uncle', but Sakura was traded off at the request of Zouken and because the Tohsaka family only ever raises one child to be a magus at a time. Though Kariya loved Aoi, she was never aware of it, and genuinely loved Tokiomi in turn, something Kariya never really comes to realise or accept as true. He also doesn't realise how blind Aoi and Tokoiomi are to Sakura's situation; though Aoi worries about her, she is not aware her daughter is in danger. He believes -or possibly has 'rationalised' that- Aoi married politically rather than out of love.

Ultimately, Kariya is a kind man who is willing to sacrifice himself to protect those he loves - quite literally: at the point I am entering him, he has a life expectancy measured in months, and has no illusions about himself surviving past the Holy Grail War. However, he is blind to his faults. Whilst Kariya's hatred of Zouken is quite justified, his vendetta against Tokiomi is considerably more irrational. He sees him as an arrogant, irredeemable villain when really he is a short-sighted, proud man who genuinely loves his family but is an extremely poor judge of character (he traded Sakura off to the Matous because he thought she would be happier, rather than staying and becoming jealous of Rin inheriting the family, and seems to be unaware of Zouken's true nature. Also Kotomine). He also cannot understand the fact that Aoi loves Tokiomi, not him, which is almost certainly affecting his judgement in that regard. That said, he is still entering the War purely for Sakura's sake; Tokiomi being another Master is a complicating factor, not his reason for entering. He cares for Rin just as much; saving her life at one point when she runs away to Fuyuki in the middle of the War.

An interesting point is who he saves her from. The Caster of the 4th war was a mad child murderer (Gilles de Rais), as was his Master, and the administrator of the War had to temporarily change the rules to make all the other Masters take out Caster before he made the situation worse. Kariya offed one of Caster's summoned creatures to save Rin (he bugged it to death), so he was clearly aware of Caster's atrocities, but the anime never makes any indication he was or wasn't hunting for Caster (he probably gets the least screen time of all the Masters). My guess is either that he was, but couldn't locate Caster, or was hoping one of the other Masters would take him out since Kariya is well aware he can only survive supporting Berserker in combat for a limited amount of time. Actually in the entire War he's pretty much entirely focused on Tokiomi rather than fighting the other Masters; Berserker attacks Saber on his own initiative.

Equally, we've only seen Kariya interact with people he already knows (ie Aoi, Rin, Sakura, Zouken and Tokiomi). With regard to all the infinitely new people he'll run into on the island, he'll probably be hesitantly cautious; he is well aware how terrible he looks and the worms aren't exactly pleasant, though he does have them under control. For the most part he'll probably prefer to avoid people face-to-face, though if someone's in trouble - especially if it's a kid - he'll try to help.

Finally, it should be obvious, Kariya is also selfless to the point of being self-destructive. He really doesn't care that much about himself, just about saving those he cares about (and as the pain of maintaining Berserker drives him increasingly mad, punishing Tokiomi and Zouken). These are quite literally the only things he's living for at the moment. He's also very good at deluding himself; there's absolutely no way he can possibly win, let alone survive the Grail War, but he soldiers on anyway. He is determined to save Sakura, whatever it takes from him.

ABILITIES: Kariya is a mage of the Matou family line. Mages in the Fate/Series possess 'Magical Circuits', extensions of the soul that allow their carrier to wield magic (Magi usually have more than one circuit) and increase in power with regular use. Kariya expanded on his own (barely there since he never used them) with the implantation of a Worm Crest in his body formed by the Matou Crest Worms; Zouken's familiars. These worms are still there, slowly destroying him from the inside in exchange for power, and are riled up when Kariya gets particularly angry or emotionally unstable (they are literally crawling around beneath his skin). As Kariya only has a year of accelerated training, despite the Crest Worms expanding his magical circuits, he is still far below average for a Fate/Series mage. We never actually see him cast magic short of the Servant Summoning in episode one. That said, when he goes up against Tokiomi - a fully practised Fate mage - he (spoilers) loses spectacularly, and when he saves Rin from one of Caster's familiars he does it by sending his swarm of insects to stab it to death. That and the Grail Summoning are probably all the magic he has.

Nevertheless, he is still managed to be chosen as a Master by the Holy Grail (admittedly this means very little, considering Ryuunosuke, Master of Caster isn't a mage at all). He has summoned a Heroic Spirit to the Berserker class (which boosts power in exchange for the Hero's sanity and an increased drain on his Master's mana, which can easily prove fatal to someone like Kariya), though Kariya arriving in Exit Void will have presumably severed this contract, leaving him a free Master, still possessing all three Command Spells. They're used in the Holy Grail War solely to command Servants, however, so short of the War being restarted in Exit Void (unlikely) there's absolutely no point in using them.

Kariya can summon flying insects (the Crest Worms from within his body) to attack his enemies, though they are vulnerable to fire (naturally, this is arch-rival Tokiomi's speciality). These are fast, and come in large swarms. So far, this is the only offensive attack we've seen from him; normally, he sends in his Servant, Berserker, but the toll of doing so prevents him from taking an active part at his Servant's side. Presumably though, they'd act as a sort of automatic defence against the wildlife; the worms will always act to ensure their own survival, which means keeping Kariya alive as their host. They're not intelligent, but will respond to being attacked; in particular anything that strikes by trying to invade the body is going to quickly find it's being counter-invaded and turned into woodfood (still not terribly pleasant for Kariya). As a rough guide, creatures at two stars will almost certainly get wormed; three and up being more a challenge; Kariya himself is half-dead so he's not going to put up much of a fight personally, meaning it's the flying worms he'll have to rely on. Kariya can direct them to a degree, but it pretty much amounts to 'go there, kill that thing and come back'. As they are his familiars, he can also use them to scout by seeing what they see... which probably isn't that spectacular since they're insects but he can deploy a lot of them over a wide area. This is likely how he was able to find Rin in time to save her from Caster's familiar in episode 10.

Kariya's physical state is extremely weak; the Crest Worms are literally killing him, and he probably has only months to live. Most of his left side is numb, with his left leg crippled leaving him with a permenant limp. One side of his face is already dead, leaving him blind in one eye, and disfigured by the Crest Worm infestation. His hoodie, always worn, helps him hide this. Casting magic puts him under a lot of physical stress since it aggravates the worms. In short, Kariya's life at the moment is near constant pain. He cannot run, has only the use of one arm.

POSSESSIONS: Other than the clothes he's wearing and probably a wallet and change, Kariya is never really shown carrying anything around with him regularly. That said, the Crest Worms within him probably count; see above. They're literally underneath his skin. The worms will change size; when he coughs up blood there are usually a few worms that come out with it and they're clearly shrunk, whilst the swarms he's seen with are far too numerous and individually large to fit inside him all at once. In episode 14, we see the flying form of the bugs erupting from the crawling worms. It seems like he has a large horde that is partly carried inside, partly following him around. That or he vomited them up in advance before confronting Tokiomi, which would also make sense. Either way it's a little unclear how many of them he has inside him compared to out, so to be on the safe side he'll only have the ones within on arrival. More will grow naturally, so his horde will build up with time. They're fairly 'ordinary' insects otherwise; they can be crushed, killed etc. Probably not a good idea to eat them.

samples.
JOURNAL ENTRY SAMPLE:

(voice)

[there's a wet cough, then a raspy, slightly sick male voice comes on the line]

Hello? [there's a crunch of sand as Kariya shifts about, looking around at the island. He'd send a few insects out to scout around but after the wakeup call with the parasites he's getting the impression it might be best keeping them closer to home] Is there anyone receiving this?

[He coughs as he feels the worms wriggling in his throat. Please let him not be dead, he still hadn't saved Sakura; please let him not be dead...]

Hello?

THIRD-PERSON SAMPLE:

Funny thing, dreams.

He remembered being young once; all tumbles and scrapes and being forever taller and ganglier than everyone else. He knew Aoi then; a rich girl that emanated class and was forever at turns shocked and amused at his boyish self's antics. He remembered them growing up, going through school; two friends that laughed and joked and cheated their parents and did all the little things children do to madden their parents.

He remembered making his parent mad once. The night he stormed out of the family house after stumbling across the basement filled with the smell of rotting, dead meat and decay and Zouken Matou smiling without a hint of an apology.

The pits full of worms disturbed him less.

Zouken had smiled through his accusations, laughed when he called him a monster. Only when he swore to leave the family did Zouken's grin drop. When he'd stormed out that night with nothing but a bag over his shoulder, the old vampire told him never to show his face to him again. The first and last time they'd ever be in agreement.

He'd kept contact with Aoi over the years as he'd found his way through life; striking out on his own, forced to become an adult a few years too soon. Finding a house. Finding a job. Making a whole new life without the spectre of magic or his family poisoning the very ground. The irony was fresh in his veins; the last member of the Matou family able to cast magic, and he'd left. The line ended with him. And there wasn't a damn thing Zouken could do about it. He was happy. He was free. After a few months he was left honestly confused as to why he hadn't done it sooner.

When Aoi married Tokiomi, he kept his silence. He knew what Tokiomi was, but the happiness on Aoi's face held his tongue. She knew what she was getting into. Besides, the man seemed nice enough, if a little too highly strung. There was always a distance between them; the man she loved and the man she knew; the man who delved deep into magic and was proud of it, and the man who had turned it away in disgust. When Sakura and Rin came later, his doubts had quieted and the Tohsakas had his tacit approval. When they started calling him 'uncle' they evaporated completely.

Five beautiful years, that lasted.

The worm had the last laugh. The one thing he knew for a fact. Zouken was a worm outside and in, a shrivelled, festering thing that crawled into the gaps where you couldn't see and made everything rot. He'd never seen it coming, but then that was the point. Zouken's strategy had always been to find the absolute limit of human cruelty; the line past which his opponents couldn't even think, then cross it. And damn Tokiomi for going along with it.

The look on Rin's face. The look on Aoi's face. The complete lack of anything on Sakura's face, from pain to horror as the worms crawled and ate and invaded and changed her into...

Kariya spat bloody phelgem onto the walls of the alleyway he was staggering through. The cursed magic of the House of Matou. The blood on the wall writhed. Kariya grimaced. One eye dead. One leg stiff and sore as though filled with broken bones. One arm that just never moved at all. His hair had turned to white, drained of all vitality. Sakura was showing the same symptoms; where once was brown, the same colour as Aoi's, now was some unnatural purple colour. It sickened him every time he saw it. He still loved the girl; she was still Sakura but...

Damn Zouken. Damn him for going this far. That shrivelled bastard would already rot in hell all Kariya wanted him to do now was die.

Damn Tokiomi. Damn him for selling away his daughter and thinking he had an excuse. Calling the rest of the world was just rabble. What would he even know. Bastard couldn't even work a telephone. Damn him for everything. For Aoi abandoning her daughter. For Rin having to forget her sister. For Sakura...

For calling Sakura an accident.

Kariya dragged himself down the alleyway, past the trash and filth and the stray dogs that fled at his very presence. Pain shifted constantly under his skin. Half his body wanted to give up; the other half already had. His nails ground into his palms with his remaining fist. Fuelled by anger, fuelled by spite and that desperate dream, he moved on.

The symbols on his hand were proof of his victor. Berserker would show them all. The perfect weapon. He just had to stay alive long enough to use it and wipe that arrogant smirk of his face.

Just a little longer.

“Just a little longer, Sakura...”

He'd show them all. He'd kill them all.

Just a little longer, and he could fulfil his dreams.