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Dec. 2nd, 2023 03:07 pm▶ PLAYER INFO.
▶ CHARACTER INFO.
PLAYER NAME: Rhys
PRONOUNS: she/they
OVER 18?: ayep.
CONTACT: PM
OTHER CHARACTERS: none yet!
▶ CHARACTER INFO.
CHARACTER NAME: Itachi Uchiha
CHARACTER AGE: 21 in canon, almost 24 from CRAU.
CANON: Naruto wiki.
CANON POINT: Post-death (the second time)
CRAU INFO: Itachi spent about ~3 years of 'lived experience' within the gameximilia. (This wasn't exactly 1:1 in terms of calendar time, because many events had a 'your character has been in the mission setting for ~2 months before the start of the mission!' type situation)
Ximilia is a mission-based game in which one is promised a change of their regret in exchange for a time investment hunting macguffins across the cosmos — a variety of worlds, cultures, peoples, etc. The game relies heavily on character development to drive its missions to the end. I'll try to touch on the important things as they relate to him here.
It starts this way: all of the missions had a 'personal goal' given to them by the macguffin. Fulfilling these goals gives you additional 'points' so to speak towards undoing your regret. Itachi has accomplished every one of them — including one early on that required him to betray 'the people closest to him'. (audience laughter) As Itachi hadn't put any stock at that point in cultivating close relationships in the ~6 months he'd been in game at that point, he picked two people for the sake of the goal, spent his time 'getting close' to them, and then manufactured evidence that they were working for the enemy — sending them both to Hell Jail for their 'crimes'. (He did this not knowing if they would live or die ICly.
This tied directly into an NPC thread that resulted in him, for the first time in literal years, deciding to put his trust in someone else. The weirdest thing is that it actually paid off. This event was sort of a catalyzing thing for him — putting him in a position of recognizing that there was in fact a way for him to resolve things peacefully, that reaching for trust wasn't always necessarily going to backfire. It provided the backbone of the entire rest of his time in the game.
Other notable things:
He offered to let Gwen kill him after The Betrayal. (bonus points for cross-cultural misunderstandings and Itachi getting beaten up with a blobfish plushie)
He befriended Leonard McCoy, who would eventually offer to change his regret to alter the course of Itachi's own life.
He mind-tortured Finn from Adventure Time in a very 'I am triggered, actually' attempt at teaching this idiot child that Thou Shalt Not Kill.
He got a bit frisky with both Yennefer from the Witcher (which I will not link as it was NSFW) and Wei Wuxian from the Untamed (... ditto that) and kinda slowly started learning how to Be a Person again. He's done ballet with Natasha Romanoff, helped Finn from Star Wars (xim is a many finn-dered thing) master his usage of the Force, worn an ugly sweater for 'Christmas' three years running and his best friend is one of the station NPCs who he will no doubt miss terribly.
By the time he'll pop on over to Synflux, he's come to the realization that if he's going to be worthy of a second chance, he has to be the man his brother thought he was before he went all (kill bill sirens) on their family. So, he's spent the majority of his time advocating for peaceful solutions, lending his strength to protecting others, and learning how to heal with his powers. However, his temper still got him into trouble now and then.
(I know I asked about powers — I'd like to specify that the healing is also within his wheelhouse to learn in canon, they're not 'new' to him either (and he's bad at it, whoop).
also: it has been 3 years since he killed someone for reals and that's a wild timeline for him okay.
SUITABILITY: Seeing as how Naruto is basically: Child Soldiers But Make Them Neon Orange And Give Them Magic, and Itachi is an antagonist for like 3/4s of his screen time, he's high at the top of the list of 'useful folks to have around'. He's been in combat in one form or another since his father took it upon himself to decide a battlefield was an appropriate place for a toddler! Itachi killed his first man at four years old, and while that sent him (mentally) down the rabbit hole of 'peace is better, actually', he was entangled in a world where it's actually kinda never an option. By the time Itachi was thirteen he'd spent two years in a black ops division doing shady shit, one year as a captain within that same division, annihilated his entire clan — almost three hundred people — and joined a terrorist group. Now, the terrorist group was actually a deep cover mission (his last, as it happens) but that didn't stop him from doing any of the following: assassinations, starting wars (whoops) destabilizing regions (whoops) and — hah! — capturing 'monsters' of his own.
He also has strong strategic and leadership capability, and especially post-Ximilia, he's willing to work alongside team members both to manage and protect them. Pair him with a bunch of under-18s and you'll see him be a capable, tough-but-fair teacher who's going to try his best to get everyone home in one piece but accepts that casualties are the nature of the work.
PERSONALITY TRAITS:
the good:
☀ Loyal: Itachi is an incredibly dedicated person — whether it's to an ideal, a place or a person. This is honestly a double-edged knife with him, because there were points throughout his history where he was loyal to people he probably shouldn't have been loyal to, to his detriment and downfall.
☀ Willful: Itachi is someone who has drive and the vision to execute that drive. He will drag himself half-dead along the road to his goals if he has to. (and he kinda... did) This also aligns with his considerable discipline to great effect.
☀ Pacifistic: He tries hard to choose the 'path of least harm'. Of course, because he is a dumbass (look, he admits to this when he's brought back as a zombie okay) he was short-sighted about what pacificsm looks like at its core. With the CRAU deets from Xim, he's enhanced his understanding of this, and has taken it further — he is now one of the more staunch supporters of peacable discussions, advocacy, etc.
☀ Kind: At his core, he is a genuinely kind person — it's mostly just that he was in a world where that was a Bad Idea. However, this does not mean he's a kawaii cinnamon roll uwu never done anything wrong in his life. He's tortured and abused people (not to mention his own brother) out of some combination of the above traits, he's done awful shit across the board — but if left to his own devices with no crushing weight of duty or responsibility, he will always choose to be kind to those that need it. Even, sometimes, those that don't.
the bad:
☀ Fatalism: There's a certain acceptance of the inevitability of terrible acts and outcomes — Itachi is not one to really rally against fate at least as he is in canon. Despite all his power and all his skill, he operates strictly within the confines of his societal expectations and does not try to step outside them. Ultimately, this is one of the reasons he Fucks Up So Spectacularly.
☀ Unyielding: Similarly to the above, getting him to let go of an opinion once he's settled on it is next to impossible. This is the dark side of being driven — he's slow to grasp new concepts, new ideas, and divorce himself from tactics that cause more harm than good.
☀ Ruthless: Itachi may be a pacifist, but hoo boy. If the quickest way to end a fight with the least amount of casualties is to murder the shit out of a few dudes in an awful way so the others run: he'll do it. He is not above using torture. This is all born from the rather mistaken ideal that ending a conflict quickly rather than letting it drag out is better in the long run. He's a very dumb genius.
☀ Hypocritical: Itachi is the king of 'do as I say not as I do'. This is most evident when interacting with his brother, but ultimately: he will 100 percent lecture people on what it means to be Good or Decent or Honest and then turn around and do none of that himself.
PERSONALITY REFERENCE: personality bit.
POWERS & SKILLS: (caveat: i've stolen parts of the powers from another app I wrote for Itachi's brother Sasuke once upon a time. It's all my words, it's more that the idea of writing another power section for a Naruto character has TKO'd me tho).
I know y'all said 'concise' but it's. ... there's. I — (helpless gestures at canon)
so, about that.𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑲𝑹𝑨
► In the Naruto universe, 'chakra' is an additional nervous pathway in the body of all living creatures. The ability to 'mold' chakra, which is to say perform shinobi techniques is generally required to be a ninja. Itachi has average chakra 'levels' but insanely above average 'control', which means his chakra can go further/faster/stronger/daft punk refs.
► Directly translated as 'ninja arts', this is the Hufflepuff category of all things ninja. According to databook stats, Itachi has the highest possible score (a 5). This means he knows a thing or two about a thing or two.
Ninjutsu generally covers anything that requires hand-seals (elemental abilities, yin/yang abilities), but also use of weaponry. An example of very basic low-level ninjutsu would be a henge (disguise/shapeshifting ability) or a kawarimi ('body swap' ability that lets you substitute yourself for a nearby object, used to confuse/redirect opponents on the battlefield).
Higher level techniques includes:
☀ fūinjutsu or 'sealing techniques'. (The ability to seal something into a scroll for later use, the ability to seal a single-use technique into an object or person, etc)
☀ Elemental jutsu. Think: 'fire magic' and you'll be on the right track. Itachi can use fire, water and air (with fire being his strongest element). He can use the highest tier of 'flame release', known as 'Amaterasu' — this is a black fire that cannot be extinguished by normal means until it's burnt its target to ash.
☀ Summoning jutsu. Itachi can summon crows — non-sentient birds that he uses in a variety of ways (mostly to trick/swarm his opponents.)
► Taijutsu in the Naruto canon is hand-to-hand combat. What it says on the tin. It should be noted that Naruto canon does not operate on logic or real world constraints so it's normal for people (including Itachi) to be able to react to things like a lightning strike, to be able to punch massive holes in the ground/through trees/mountains/etc so when I say 'hand-to-hand'... yeah.
► Itachi is a member of the Uchiha clan, and as such inherited their kekkei genkai the 'sharingan'. The sharingan is an ocular ability that changes the appearance of the eye to red with black pinwheels, and allows the user to have perfect copy and recall of any ability, movement or skill their opponent uses — as well as the ability to repeat that ability/skill/movement/etc later on themselves. There are two stages to this ability: the baseline sharingan and the mangekyō (with the latter being rarer/more powerful)
Itachi's mangekyō and/or bloodline gives him a host of abilities:
☀ Amaterasu: the highest known form of 'flame release'.
☀ Tsukuyomi: an illusion that gives him total control over a target's perceptions of time, pain, etc.
☀ Susano'o: a giant chakra mech, I wish I was kidding. Itachi's Susano'o has two spiritual weapons with it:
☀ Yata Mirror: A legendary mirror capable of reflecting all attacks both physical and 'magical'.
☀ Totsuka Blade: A legendary sword that can seal everything it touches into a realm of eternal drunkenness.
☀ Izanagi: A space/time jutsu that allows a person to essentially 'rewind time' to find a more favorable outcome in a fight, and its counterpart:
☀ Izanami: An ability that traps a person in a time loop until they accept the outcome of a situation whether it's favourable or not, by choosing a different path.
► Genjutsu is a sort of 'illusion' technique. They work by targeting the forebrain of an opponent, and will work* on anyone or thing that has a complex nervous system. Genjutsu is not actually real, and does not actually occur — however, characters very much feel like it is happening to them because of how it targets the prosencephalon structure of the mind. Therefore, genjutsu users can inflict sensations of pain on their opponents that can trigger all subsequent physiological responses in them.
Itachi has been demonstrated to use genjutsu for the following: to render an opponent temporarily unconscious, to induce paralysis, forceful extraction of information, to relay or erase memories, to exchange information, to control others, and to psychologically disable his opponents via sensory torture. He has also shown a proclivity to place genjutsu 'traps' on people, that will activate in specific circumstances, obfuscating one's mind or senses when these circumstances are met.
* only to be done with fully informed permissions of anyone involved.
IN SUMMARY: TL;DR.
NERFED POWERS:
☀ Izanami/Izanagi: discarded.
☀ Susano'o: while partial bits of Susano'o can be summoned (ref) for more generic use, the full meal deal will only be used situationally with mod awareness/consent. While it has significant offensive power, it specializes in defense — so Itachi would tend to only use it as a means to protect others (be it teammates, npcs, etc) and I'd only want to bust it out for Significant Narrative Moments. If this works as a compromise let me know!
☀ Genjutsu: I'm going to nerf the mind-control aspect of this, but keep the illusions if it's cool with y'all?
☀ Amaterasu: Can be extinguished but is Hard To Do. Burns hotter than a normal fire, but I'll also reduce the radius massively (both its AOE and casting radius)
☀ Summoning: Itachi can only summon 2 Normal Earth Crows.
PERSONAL ITEM: In Ximilia, Itachi asked one of the main NPCs for his sword — the one with which he murdered his entire clan. She returned it to him. It's just a normal sword, no special or magical abilities, but it demonstrates his growth and willingness to atone for past sins. It's Themeatically Important.
ALTERNATE IDENTITY: Yoshikazu (with the kanji: 義和) Shimada (with the kanji: 嶋田). Let this man work in a fancy specialty tea-shop that's been in the same family for 400 years or something.
CODE NAME CHOICE: i'm gonna be awful and request `Suzaku (朱雀)`
SAMPLES: 9 network (look it was hard to find anything over 8+ comments because he almost never does network threads that go over like. 4) and 10+ log (note: he was in a henge at this point which is why he's a ~pretty blonde gal) and a bonus thread 10+, dealing with grief
