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toshizou hijikata | hakuouki (1/2)

[hakodate]

P L A Y E R;
NAME: Sam
AGE: 29
PLAYER JOURNAL: dekaja
TIMEZONE: MST
CONTACT: estamir
OTHER CHARACTERS PLAYED: none yet

C H A R A C T E R;
NAME: Toshizou Hijikata (he's used to using family name first, though, so he'd be introducing himself as Hijikata Toshizou)
CANON: Hakuouki
POINT IN CANON: Late chapter 9 in Hijikata's route of the video game, just before the battle of Hakodate. As per here, however, I will also be taking some anime events into account that don't conflict (namely, Souji's death scene).
AGE: 33
APPEARANCE: Here - wait, no.

This is his usual look; his hair and eyes change when his powers are active, leaving him looking like this.

CANON HISTORY: I find the Hakuouki wiki to be pretty insufficient, so I'm just doing this from scratch. Also trying not to go overboard and keep it at least reasonably brief, so I can elaborate on things if it's needed. /o\

Hijikata comes from a family of farmers, but from a young age he was never satisfied with his place in life. Not wanting to be a farmer for the rest of his life - and knowing he didn't stand to inherit anything as the youngest son anyway - he undertook an apprenticeship to become a merchant, but he wasn't satisfied with that, either, and left home to sell medicine from his family's recipe on the road - stopping in dojos to request matches on the way, because what he really wanted was to become a samurai.

As far out of reach as that seemed, everything changed when he met Kondou Isami.

Kondou came from origins as humble as Hijikata, but had been moved up in rank through being adopted by Hijikata's brother-in-law, the master of the Tennen Rishin-ryuu sword style, and seeing that gave Hijikata hope for himself as well. He began frequenting the Shieikan dojo, and he and Kondou became very close. Although Hijikata hadn't really accomplished anything with his life thus far, Kondou insisted that he simply hadn't found the direction that suited him, and that his dream to become a samurai wasn't ridiculous at all.

Kondou inherited the dojo when the previous master retired, but they fell upon hard times, and keeping the doors open was a constant financial struggle. A hatamoto planned to nominate Kondou as an instructor at the shogunate's military academy, but the offer fell through because of Kondou's low-class origins. It was a harsh blow to Kondou's confidence, but then they heard about the Roshigumi - a group of ronin being gathered to serve as protectors of the shogun, an honorable enough excuse for them to close up the dojo without attracting gossip, and that would pay enough money to provide for Kondou's family. Hijikata talked Kondou into it, swearing that he'd push Kondou up in the world and get him the recognition he deserved, and they left for Kyoto.

Their early time in Kyoto was difficult. The Roshigumi was small, underfunded (as they didn't receive the pay they were originally promised), and reliant on Serizawa Kamo's connections to Aizu to get them any kind of authority to police the streets - however, Serizawa was ruthless and abusive, and his actions did little to endear the Roshigumi to the people of Kyoto. From the beginning, the group was clearly falling into two factions, under the two main leaders of the Roshigumi - Serizawa and Kondou. And it was during one of their disagreements that Serizawa said something that would stick with Hijikata for the rest of his life: that if he wanted to raise Kondou up, Hijikata needed to become a demon, and not hesitate to make an enemy of everyone, if that was what it took.

During this time another issue was arising, behind the scenes - the shogunate brought them a substance called ochimizu, which would supposedly present a solution to their manpower problems - but although anyone who drank it increased their physical abilities far beyond that of a human and gained the ability to rapidly heal from wounds, they lost their sanity in the process, becoming a mindless, bloodthirsty monster. Although Hijikata was opposed to experimenting with the ochimizu, he was overruled by Serizawa, and Niimi took charge of working behind the scenes to try and mitigate the side effects and come up with something more suitable for widespread use.

Although the Roshigumi eventually received better official recognition from Aizu, and renamed to the Shinsengumi, their other problems persisted. Serizawa's behavior became more intolerable, and Niimi disappeared with the ochimizu and all of the research on it. Hijikata led the rest of the Shieikan faction in hunting down and eliminating Niimi, and planned Serizawa's assassination - which was successful, although things got a bit more intense when planned after Serizawa drank the ochimizu during the fight.

Some time after Serizawa's assassination, however, another problem fell into their lap - while hunting down and disposing of a few of their men-turned-rasetsu that had gone rogue, the Shinsengumi found they had a witness. Hijikata decided to bring the boy back to headquarters and decide what to do with him, but the boy was in fact a girl - Yukimura Chizuru, the daughter of the doctor who was responsible for developing the ochimizu, and who had come to Kyoto in search of her father after his disappearance. As this was also a goal of the Shinsengumi, they decided to keep Chizuru around, giving her protection in exchange for her help with their search, and making her Hijikata's page as a cover.

Although they were initially disinclined to trust her, Chizuru proved her loyalty time and time again, going from simple chores and errands to acting as a messenger to give them the warning they needed when they won their reputation in the Ikedaya incident, and accompanying them to the front during the Hamaguri Gate Rebellion - battles that introduced them to a trio of highly formidable opponents, first among them Kazama Chikage, a man apparently working with Satsuma. She also was let in on their most closely guarded secret - the ochimizu - when Sannan decided to test the new revisions to the formula on himself, spurred on by feelings of uselessness from a crippled arm.

More pieces of the puzzle came together over time - Kazama revealed himself to be a demon, in pursuit of Chizuru because she too was a demon and there were few pureblooded females of their kind. The demons were working in tandem with the Satsuma and Choushuu rebels, and claimed that Chizuru's father was doing the same, having abandoned his former shogunate ties.

The situation was steadily getting worse for the Shinsengumi, as well. The political situation began to shift against the favor of the shogunate. Heisuke was mortally wounded in the fallout from an internal dispute and had to drink the ochimizu to survive. Kondou was shot in an assassination attempt and sent away from headquarters to recover. Things came to a head when the battle of Toba-Fushimi broke out, and despite having three times the rebels' numbers, the shogunate forces were quickly pushed back by their opponents' superior weapons and tactics. Hijikata sent Inoue and Chizuru to bring reinforcements.

Instead, they found Kazama.

Hijikata arrived just in time to find Inoue dead and Chizuru being overpowered; enraged, he attacked Kazama, but while he was able to force Kazama to reveal his true form, that form proved too much for him to handle, and in a moment of desperation, Hijikata turned to the ochimizu and became a rasetsu himself. The fight intensified, but Kazama found the upper hand again, and Hijikata was saved when Yamazaki took a blow meant for him - and gave him a much needed reality check, bringing him to his senses to oversee the retreat to Osaka Castle...and then to Edo, when the shogun pulled out first and ordered his troops back.

From there the war became a frustrating dance of trying to get the support they needed to wage war from the higher-ups, eventually leading the Shinsengumi to be ordered to Koufu Castle - where they suffered a devastating defeat that decimated their numbers, crushed Kondou's confidence, and proved to be the final straw for Shinpachi and Sanosuke, who left. Hijikata pushed on, trying to organize them and bounce back, sending Saitou to take most of the troops to train with new firearms, trying to bolster Kondou's confidence again - and then their position was surrounded, and when Hijikata tried to take a stand alone to let Kondou and Chizuru escape, Kondou refused, ordering Hijikata to escape while he stayed. No amount of yelling, arguing, and pleading from Hijikata was enough to change his mind.

Hijikata was a barely restrained wreck, for a time after that; after regrouping with Ootori Keisuke and the remains of the shogunate's army to continue the retreat north, he took Utsunomiya Castle with a handful of soldiers and a manic energy that suggested he didn't have much interest in continuing to live. Kazama was there on business of his own, with a sword that inflicted wounds a rasetsu's advanced healing could do nothing for, and Hijikata was forced to leave the front to recover - and was shouted down by Ootori, who inadvertently echoed Yamazaki's parting words, providing Hijikata with another much needed reality check; when they received reports of Kondou's execution, Souji managed to drag himself out of his own sickbed long enough to punch Hijikata in the face - and then die protecting him before his wounds had finished recovering, because despite their difficult relationship, Hijikata's life was what Kondou wanted more than anything.

The retreat north continued, with Saitou choosing to stay behind and fight with the rear guard in Aizu while the remains of the Shinsengumi continued on to Sendai; Sannan and Heisuke went ahead to see what support they could secure while the main army caught up, but when Hijikata and Chizuru caught up, they were nowhere to be found. Chizuru was kidnapped by a group of rasetsu commanded by her father, who brought her to the castle, where Sannan was also waiting. Hijikata soon met with Heisuke and caught up; one standoff later in which Sannan revealed he'd been playing both ends against the middle, the rasetsu were wiped out, Chizuru's father died to protect her, and Heisuke and Sannan had burned out their lifespans, and turned to dust, leaving Hijikata all but alone - save for Chizuru.

As the alliance made one last retreat, north to Ezo, Hijikata forbade Chizuru to come with them. Chizuru said "to hell with that" and made her own way after them, with a little help from Ootori, and her appearance on his doorstep forced Hijikata to realize just how poorly he'd been functioning without her - and to admit that maybe he was in love with her.

Of course, the enemy's still got overwhelmingly superior numbers and they're right on Ezo's doorstep, so he might not have a lot of time left to think that over further.

[hakodate]

CANON PERSONALITY: To understand Hijikata, one has to understand his relationship with Kondou, because it's the cornerstone of his motivations, his actions, and much of his behavior.

Hijikata had an ambition to make his way up in the world before he met Kondou, and he had a dream to become a samurai, but it's not until after he meets Kondou that he finds the drive to follow them through - not for himself, but for Kondou. Before Kondou, he didn't know how to make what he wanted a reality; Kondou was one step ahead of him on that same path, and told him it wasn't a ridiculous thing for him to want to become a samurai. And Hijikata, for his part, gives Kondou the support he needs when he falters in that belief himself before they leave Kyoto.

Serizawa has a moment that sums it up best - he observes that Hijikata sees his dream in Kondou and gave it up himself to entrust it to Kondou, and each of the two has what the other lacks. Kondou has the charisma to attract people to him; Hijikata has the wits and the pragmatism to do what needs to be done, no matter how unpleasant. Kondou has the vision of where they're going; Hijikata has the plan to get them there. They balance each other out, and they both believe in the other more than in themselves - but they both feel they have to live up to what the other sees in them, and that bond is the fuel that keeps them both going.

For all that he dislikes Serizawa, Hijikata takes the man's advice to him - to become a demon - very seriously, to the point of being nicknamed "the Demon Vice-Commander" later on. He is willing to be ruthless when he has to be; it was Hijikata who put the Shinsengumi's Code in place, and Hijikata who holds the men to it - or gives them a choice between seppuku or drinking the ochimizu if they break it. He cuts down one of his own men at Utsunomiya to set an example for those considering turning and running. He's absolutely a hardass when he deems it necessary, and especially early on in canon, it's necessary quite often; Kondou is the kind one who can rally people around him, and Hijikata is the iron fist behind him who keeps them in line and makes sure they're getting shit done.

It's important to remember, on the other hand, that the hardass act is to some extent just that - it's an act, not the full sum of Hijikata's personality. He's ruthless when he deems it necessary, but he does it with reason, and there are moments that clearly show his softer side - from his initial refusal to kill Chizuru on the spot when he finds her (which would be a far easier way to protect the Shinsengumi's secrets), to much of his behavior towards her throughout his route. After he's had some time to start coming to terms with Kondou's death, it's also easier to see the nicer side of him come out in how he treats his troops; near the end of his route Ootori observes that he's been a lot nicer to his men, and he's shown personally pouring sake for each of his soldiers, talking to them to try and keep their spirits up - it's the kind of friendly morale-booster that earlier in the story would likely have come from Kondou. He's not incapable of kindness by any stretch, and Kondou's death gives him a reason to bring it out more often - because with his other half gone, he's in a position where he has to be everything as a leader, rather than just filling in the other half of the good cop/bad cop dichotomy for Kondou.

He's hard on himself, perhaps a natural consequence of the fact that his life is centered around somebody else. In the flashback where Kondou's appointment at the military academy is cancelled, Hijikata blames himself for not doing anything about it even as he chastises Souji for blaming him. He apologies to Saitou for some of the early problems faced by the Roshigumi, telling him that it's because of their shortcomings that the men have to put up with the situation. He takes on too much and runs himself into the ground, and after Kondou's death the only thing keeping him alive is the fact that as his men remind him - he is the Shinsengumi, and if he dies so does the organization. His willingness to live for his own sake is at a critical low after Kondou's death, but his devotion to maintaining everything he and Kondou fought to build is absolute, and it's that devotion and responsibility to the Shinsengumi that pulls him back from more than one mad, self-destructive rampage.

And despite the fact that his relationship with Souji is often abrasive and highly complicated, he still feels deeply responsible for him; having watched him grow up, Hijikata tends to look on him as a younger brother - kind of an immature pain in the ass, but someone he's still deeply protective of and who he doesn't want to see go down the wrong path. He tries to send Souji home to Edo early on, reasoning that Souji's heritage leaves him far more opportunities in life than he and Kondou have available to them; Souji reacts to that by making his first kill, to prove that he can be useful, and Hijikata worries after that about whether Souji understands the weight of taking a life. He wants the best for Souji, but he has an undeniable talent for managing to make matters worse because he's not sure how to handle him.

One more point worth noting is that Hijikata's low-born background is a sometimes subtle, but always undeniable, influence on his behavior. He's a bit rougher in his mannerisms than most of the cast (and the localization of the video game in particular shows it by translating him as something of a pottymouth), and many of the differences in his thinking and Serizawa's - especially regarding their treatment of other people - are rooted in the fact that Serizawa thinks like someone who was born to the samurai class and can get away with mistreating those below him, while Hijikata clearly knows what it's like to be on the bottom and finds that kind of behavior contemptible. He plays the game socially where he knows it's required - he's far too pragmatic not to realize that they need connections to get ahead - but he has much less patience for the classism that surrounds them, and near the end of canon, he and Ootori have a conversation about how it doesn't matter where you come from, but what you make of yourself.

POINT OF DEPARTURE: --

ABILITIES: As a rasetsu, Hijikata's physical strength, agility, and endurance go beyond human capability, and he is able to heal from physical injuries at a very rapid pace; most wounds are seen to close within a few seconds. (This healing factor only extends to physical injuries, however - it's shown with Souji to do nothing to cure diseases.)

This power comes at a price - rasetsu are nocturnal, and suffer from discomfort or outright pain when they're active in the daylight. They also suffer from a powerful compulsion to drink blood, which tends to rear its head in sudden attacks of extreme physical pain - although it's possible to wait these out rather than giving in and drinking blood, it's not pretty; most rasetsu are eventually (or immediately) driven mad. Last, their abilities are drawn directly from their own life force; if a rasetsu makes too much use of their ability to heal and burns out their own lifespan, they turn to ash on the spot - although Hijikata hasn't been one long enough to run into that problem yet.

As far as more mundane abilities go - he's a very gifted swordsman. As the vice-commander of the Shinsengumi (and the one to make most calls despite being outranked by Kondou), he's a proven leader, originally in a more police-like capacity but also in larger scale military engagements, once the Boshin War breaks out; he has experience dealing with logistics, politics, and strategy, and he's seen to be effective at what he does, despite having unfavorable conditions standing in his way. He's also a skilled interrogator (read: torturer).

He's also an amateur poet! A notoriously bad one, but hey.

INVENTORY; The clothes on his back, a pair of swords (his katana, the Izumi-no-Kami Kanesada, and a wakizashi). A revolver, although he's far more comfortable with his sword and isn't carrying extra ammo, so it's likely to be a last resort at best.

ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW? Hijikata will be coming in as a veteran Traveler, so he's been around the World Series for a bit already - a fair amount of time, in fact, but as he's lost all memories of previous jaunts as a side effect of Moebius, he's not actually sure how many jaunts he has been on. (I'm thinking, though, that he's been on about ten, if that works.)

S A M P L E S;
FIRST PERSON: one and two; the first is a bit better representative of his general behavior but Chizuru brings out his softer side, which I think shows up a bit better in the second.

And test drive threads for good measure: one and two.

THIRD PERSON:
That swirling black portal had appeared again, and no veteran Traveler would ever mistake what that meant.

Hijikata, especially, was never a man one could accuse of being stupid - at least, not in the sense of lacking any sense of logical pattern recognition. His willingness, at times, to fling himself headfirst into those patterns thinking to change them out of sheer determination, on the other hand, might be a bit more suspect.

And so there wasn't much surprise when he was one of the first to step forward in that hasty, hurried discussion of who was going in - before they ran out of time to go in at all. It might be taking a stupid risk with no guarantee of reward, but that much might as well summarize his entire life before Traveling, and more to the point -

As much as he might deny it if asked, Hijikata was starting to get attached to some of his longer-running fellow Travelers, whether he thought of them as comrades in arms or as stupid kids who needed looking after. (Or in some cases, both.)

He gave the portal a long, hard look, one hand resting at the hilt of his sword. There wasn't really any way to know what to expect out of these things, but it didn't mean it wasn't possible to do anything to prepare oneself mentally - and going in at anything less than full readiness could be a disaster for more than just those of them about to jump in there. "Anyone not ready, now's the time to speak up or get the hell out of the way."

They were no substitute for the comrades he'd already lost, and nor would he ever want them to be. But with as much experience as he had in losing people he'd wanted and been obliged to protect - as comrades, or as kids he shouldn't be leading straight into the jaws of death (or as both), he was damned if he was going to leave another one lost when the means to do something about it was sitting right here in front of him.

[powersthatbe]

ACCEPTED!