Ketsu

New non-vore alt of Solan.
OOC: After being on the chat for a while, I've run into some really good RPers, and had some wonderful RPs that had really nothing at all to do with vore. Because of that, I've decided to make a few characters from my offline stories for the portal. I repeat, this is a non-vore alt; if I'm on as Ketsu it means that I am only looking either to lurk in the Vore Room and fool around a bit, or I'm looking for a storyline RP with him.
Also, please, PLEASE note that barring his appearance, your character will not know any of Ketsu's backstory. At best you might be able to notice something odd about that butterfly...


Name: Tsucihara Ketsu
Birthplace: All God's Village (Japan)
Apparent age: 13 (actually deceased)
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Pure white
Appearance: Somewhat short for his age, pale and a bit sickly. Hair just barely reaches his shoulders, and is unbound.
Clothing: A plain white kimono, bound at the waist with a crimson sash. Also wears simple tatami sandals on his feet, with tabi.
Notable features: Is pale and feels very cold to the touch. Also carries always with or near him a butterfly with deep red wings.

I kept my promise, big brother. We'll be together forever...
Ketsu is a fairly average young child. Barring of course the fact that he's long since dead. A floating spirit accompanied at all times by a beautiful red butterfly whose wings chime as they flap, and whose legs feel icy cool to the touch, to all apperances Ketsu looks like a normal human. One would have to see him phasing through a wall, or touch his frigid skin, to realize he is a spirit. The only odd thing about him is his very prematurely white hair... a symbol of a trauma he will rarely speak of. His butterfly companion is often curious and friendly, but Ketsu is extremely protective of him and will not let anyone try and harm him. Ketsu himself is somewhat withdrawn and quiet, but not unwilling to speak if approached. Being no longer bound (jibaku), Ketsu is a wandering (fuyu) spirit who simply wishes to travel and learn.
In point of fact, however... the butterfly isn't a real butterfly, but another fuyu spirit, that of his twin brother Rei. Through a ritual that it is almost impossible to get Ketsu to speak of, Rei lost his life, but at the same time his soul was irrevocably bound with his twin's. Or, rather, reunited, at least in their eyes; their home regarded twins as being a single soul divided between two bodies. By reuniting the souls, the ritual was completed and a horrible force known as Malice would be quelled, at least until it began to build again. Ketsu lived on for many years, Rei's spirit always at his side in the form of a crimson butterfly, and when in the end he too died, he decided to also remain, a protecting spirit bound to the village, as had many twins before him. However... perhaps a hundred years later, in the midst of the nineteenth century, the ritual failed most horribly. The elder of a pair of twins fled rather than see her sister die, and in a panic, the head priest attempted to offer the younger twin into a sacrifice for the Malice. Instead, the girl returned, tainted by the Malice and accompanied by a vengeful spirit known as the Kusabi, and put the entire village to death... their souls trapped for all eternity, bound to Earth by the power of the Malice. Ketsu and Rei, too, were bound by its spread. It would not be for another hundred and fifty years that anyone was released... all those who entered the village set upon by the vengeful spirits and destroyed, their souls bound as well, until twin girls passed into the village... and in the end performed the ritual themselves, quelling the Malice for all time and releasing all those tainted by its evil. And when, a few months later, the village was flooded, drowned beneath the water for all time by a new dam, Ketsu departed, freed now from his lost home to explore outside of his village for the first time...

Background (optional read):
As fans of the game have probably already guessed, this character is based in the lore of Fatal Frame 2. If you haven't played, for the love of God go and play it. It's an even better survival-horror game than Silent Hill 2. Also, fair warning, several spoilers ahead for that game.
As for all the talk of "Malice" and "sealing rituals"... however much it may sound like mumbo-jumbo, in the world Ketsu comes from it is very frighteningly real. Malice exists, and as it grows, it periodically causes earthquakes to strike the village... or did, until it was sealed for good in the end. Horrifying as the Crimson Butterfly Ritual is, if it weren't performed the entire village would be lost to disaster.
So, what is this Crimson ritual? Well, as said before, the twins of All God's Village were thought of as a single soul divided between two bodies. By rejoining these two halves, an enormous amount of holy power would be released, and with this power the Malice could be quelled for decades to come. And then how is this union of souls accomplished? Simple. By having the elder twin strangle the younger twin to death, after which the body is dropped down the impossibly deep shaft in which the Malice dwells!
Considering that Ketsu had to go through all that, it's no wonder his hair turned white that same day. Especially considering that their ritual was performed at the age of thirteen, much earlier than usual... but there were reasons why it couldn't wait this time. That day, Rei died, and his body was given to the Hellish Abyss, but minutes later a single red butterfly returned. Rei had passed through the earth and calmed the Malice... and returned to be one with his brother. Their souls are quite literally one now, even if their minds are separate.
Rei and Ketsu performed their ritual in March of 1771, the eighth of nine years under the Meiwa government. The bonded twins lived out the rest of Ketsu's life in the same village, eventually marrying the daughter of the head priest. As one of the four noble families of All God's Village and a Remaining, Ketsu lived well, and eventually passed on and became one of the guardian spirits of the village, as mentioned before. About a hundred years later, twins Yae and Sae of the Kurosawa family failed in their ritual... Yae fleeing the village and Sae being strangled and cast into the Abyss by her own father. This ad-libbed ritual predictably failed, and Sae returned, accompanied by the vengeful spirit of a man tortured horribly and offered to placate the Malice- the Kusabi. The Kusabi slaughtered every living person in the village while Sae looked on and laughed... and as the Malice was released from the Abyss, the entire village was tainted, warped. Daylight would not come, all paths out vanished, and every dead soul was bound to the earth, unable to pass on. Rei and Ketsu were held by the Malice as well... Eventually, the twins Mio and Mayu entered the village, mere months before a scheduled dam would bury it forever underwater, and after struggling to reunite after the attack of the village's ghosts, the twins performed the Crimson Butterfly Ritual one final time, lifting the curse and releasing the spirits. Ketsu and Rei alone remained on earth, the former guardians now cast adrift by the loss of their home. And thus their wanderings began.