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madderskies
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[ AIM ] tatsumi owns you
IC Information
Name: Soushi Minashiro
Canon: Soukyuu no Fafner
Gender: Male
Age:
in-game Approximately 16 years old.
History:
• Timeline
By the time Soukyuu no Fafner's first season starts, Earth has been in constant war with Festum - an alien species with the ability to assimilate matter, human beings included. Soushi Minashiro is one of the inhabitants of Tatsumiyajima , an idyllic little island home to a peaceful Japanese town that seems to know very little about the war beyond its shores. In truth though, Tatsumiyajima is an artificial island built on top of a sophisticated military facility called ALVIS and when Festum finally find them in the year 2146, Soushi and his classmates are forced to fight not only Festum but other humans.
Soushi commands the Siegfried System which lets him issue orders directly to Tatsumiyajima Fafner pilots who have sortied. As radio signals have been proven to be penetrable by Festum, this allows them to hide their communication from the enemy. As a side effect, Soushi shares their thoughts and any and all pain they may experience while fighting.
Sometime during 2146, Soushi is captured by the Festum-assimilated Fafner Mark Nicht and forced to lend his strategy to the Festum forces in the battle at North Pole. Kazuki manages to rescue him but by then, his body has been mostly crystallized. He decides to use the last of his strength to lead Kazuki back to Tatsumiyajima before willingly letting his consciousness be fully assimilated. He claims to have found the secret to existence and nothingness in his time as a captive of Festum and promises Kazuki that he'll return, no matter what.
He does, of course, though this is after two years and with the help of the Festum Kurusu Misao who protected his existence when the Neo UNs nuclear bombed the Festum hive Soushi had come to settle with. By Fafner Exodus, Soushi has graduated from high school and is learning to become a Researcher. His aim is to find a cure for assimilation, especially since Kazuki has been given three years to live as a result of his extensive Fafner piloting.
Personality:
Like all Tatsumiyajima residents under 30, Soushi was concieved articifically and infused with Festum factor that makes him less suspectible to Festum assimilation and mind-reading. As a result of this Festum factor as well, Soushi is theoretically able to pilot a Nothung model Fafner. Because of his eye injury, however, in the first season he was deemed unsuitable for piloting because of his injured eye that reacted aversely to the standard assimilation phenomenom Fafners subject its pilots to.
By the end of Heaven & Earth, however, Soushi's body has been changed to that of a hybrid of Festum and human and its revealed in Fafner Exodus that his left eye was fixed as a result of this transformation.
Special abilities for Fafner Exodus include the ability to pilot Mark Nicht, a Salvator model Fafner whose high specs in addition to the "ghosts" haunting it makes it extremely difficult, if not straight out impossible, to pilot.
Keepsakes/Mementos:
• A framed picture of Soushi and his friends that has a gunshot hole in the middle of it.
• A vending machine exactly 11 steps from his room. :'D
•If in need of nightmare fuel, the facility in Fafner Exodus that houses Mark Nicht and apparently has creepy apparitions/"ghosts" lurking within it as a result of Nicht. Mark Nicht itself can be inside bound up in chains and being creepy in general. It's huge though so totally understandable if it's impossible. Also that facility required hazmat suits....
Sample:
Damn them! Soushi thought, anger boiling through his very existence. The Neo UN had fired another nuclear missile with the aim to wipe out both Festum commanded by Kurusu's Mir and Tatsumiyajima. He should be used to this now; how many times had the Neo UN showed their gross disregard for them? As if they weren't humans too. But now- Kazuki was there, right at the missile's path with Mark Sein. There was no way he would hold out - Sein might, it had withstood far worse after all, but Kazuki's body had to be at its limit.
Move! Soushi willed himself to crawl back into existence faster. He didn't care how, he didn't care what he had to do, he just had to save Kazuki. Kazuki who'd given so much for the island already, Kazuki who was willing to pilot the very thing that could kill him in minutes and that had already taken away his eyesight-- all for what was essentially a gamble on his part.
He felt it then-- remembered in an instant what it was like to feel as his physical body blinked back into existence inside Mark Nicht's cockpit. This place evoked feelings of disgust - he could feel the hatred and nothingness the Salvator model exuded at the back of his mind, threatening to overwhelm him at any moment - but he had to do it. He had to shield Kazuki from the brunt of the nuclear blast. And that he did, instinctively steering Mark Nicht so it covered Mark Sein (and Kazuki) completely.
As expected, Mark Nicht had no problem taking the brunt of it, and for a moment Soushi wondered if that meant they were going to be fine. If he was going to be able to fulfill his promise to Kazuki after this (I'll return to you, at any cost...).
Suddenly though, the cockpit was enveloped in bright red warning lights and pain- it had been a while since he felt pain - began lancing up his arms. At some point, he closed his eyes and when he opened them, he saw the familiar green glow of Festum crystals growing out of his his arms and legs.
"Assimilating me... huh?" Soushi hissed.
Could he ward it off? Soushi focused on fighting that familiar feeling of fading out of existence through the haze of pain. In fact, the pain kept him going- it meant he was still here. Existing.
It seemed however that Mark Nicht had picked up on his efforts and he found himself being drained faster, faster-- until the pain itself began fading away.
To think he'd lose to this machine like this... Or maybe it was because he'd willed himself back to existence too quickly?
Either way, regret was worth nothing now.
At least, before I disappear- Soushi extended his mind, reaching for Kazuki through Crossing that still held somehow. He wondered if Kazuki was even conscious. Maybe it was better if he wasn't. The feeling of being assimilated wasn't particularly pleasant, even if it was experienced second-hand.
Kazuki- ... Kazuki....... Soushi whispered through their linked consciousness anyway.
I'm sorry. It seems that... I won't be able to return. Protect the island. And please.... live on, Kazuki...
And then there was nothingness.
Mindset:
Soushi will probably take it very calmly. Then again, after his experiences in the Festum world, being in a state of non-existence is nothing new. He'll wonder if they're really just data, though, or if they've just been trapped. But he'll definitely research before he does anything too drastic.
He might be frustrated about it, of course, but he'll keep that all in thank you.
G̶̶l̨͡i̵͢t̷c͝͠h̕é͠s̷̷͡:
One of Soushi's biggest fears might be losing more people he cares about and/or being unable to protect them or help them. Losing Kazuki or Maya would be very high up on that list too as these are the two people he cares about the most.
One thing he doesn't want to do again: be used to fight his friends. In the first season of Fafner, Soushi, along with the Siegfried system, was kidnapped by Festum that was piloting Mark Nicht and used as the source of the Festum's strategy in the battle at North Pole.
His experiences in the first season has certainly given him a huge dislike for Mark Nicht too. His actions in Fafner Exodus show the depth of this: Up until Minashiro Orihime ordered him to pilot it, Soushi had been planning to have it dismantled and its core sunk to the ocean. He had it sealed in a facility resembling a sealed nuclear reactor and bound up in chains.
Timezone: EST
Journal:
madderskies Player Contact:
[plurk] alraune
[ AIM ] tatsumi owns you
IC Information
Name: Soushi Minashiro
Canon: Soukyuu no Fafner
Gender: Male
Age:
in-game Approximately 16 years old.
History:
• Timeline
By the time Soukyuu no Fafner's first season starts, Earth has been in constant war with Festum - an alien species with the ability to assimilate matter, human beings included. Soushi Minashiro is one of the inhabitants of Tatsumiyajima , an idyllic little island home to a peaceful Japanese town that seems to know very little about the war beyond its shores. In truth though, Tatsumiyajima is an artificial island built on top of a sophisticated military facility called ALVIS and when Festum finally find them in the year 2146, Soushi and his classmates are forced to fight not only Festum but other humans.
Soushi commands the Siegfried System which lets him issue orders directly to Tatsumiyajima Fafner pilots who have sortied. As radio signals have been proven to be penetrable by Festum, this allows them to hide their communication from the enemy. As a side effect, Soushi shares their thoughts and any and all pain they may experience while fighting.
Sometime during 2146, Soushi is captured by the Festum-assimilated Fafner Mark Nicht and forced to lend his strategy to the Festum forces in the battle at North Pole. Kazuki manages to rescue him but by then, his body has been mostly crystallized. He decides to use the last of his strength to lead Kazuki back to Tatsumiyajima before willingly letting his consciousness be fully assimilated. He claims to have found the secret to existence and nothingness in his time as a captive of Festum and promises Kazuki that he'll return, no matter what.
He does, of course, though this is after two years and with the help of the Festum Kurusu Misao who protected his existence when the Neo UNs nuclear bombed the Festum hive Soushi had come to settle with. By Fafner Exodus, Soushi has graduated from high school and is learning to become a Researcher. His aim is to find a cure for assimilation, especially since Kazuki has been given three years to live as a result of his extensive Fafner piloting.
Personality:
'I live to protect you and the island.'
When Soushi was about five, his father took him to the lowest levels of ALVIS and introduced him to a little girl sleeping within a vat of glowing red liquid. This was his sister, Minashiro Tsubaki, or what was left of the fetus within his mother when she was assimilated by the Tatsumiyajima Mir. Ever since her mom's assimilation, Tsubaki has since been reborn as the island's Core. From then on, Soushi learned what he believed was the reason for his existence; to protect the island and to live not for himself, or anyone, but for the island alone.
Ever since its foundation and prior to its encounter with Festum, Tatsumiyajima has had a simple policy, and that was to keep its youth in the dark about things like the war with Festum, the existence of ALVIS facility beneath the island, and the fact that Japan no longer existed. This was to ensure they lived peacefully and for them - as one of their teachers explains in the series - to understand the value of peace. Being the son of the mayor of the Island (and then-Captain of ALVIS), Soushi was not afforded this luxury. In the memory Tsubaki lets Kazuki remember, the spectre of young Soushi tells Kazuki that (according to his dad) he was born to protect the core of the island and that he couldn't live for himself or anyone else.
This was the kind of mentality Soushi had as a kid and that eventually led to an event that, according to Soushi, defines who he is.
Sometime between 2146 and 2137, Soushi was influenced by Festum and driven with the desire to 'become one with Kazuki'. Details on this incident are scarce and the series only touches upon this through Kazuki's memory and (possibly) Tsubaki's knowledge of the incident through being the core of the Island. According to the spectre of Soushi Kazuki encounters, Soushi felt like he existed nowhere as a result of his father's demand that he live for the island alone and thought he should return a place where he could be one with Kazuki. After manifesting Festum crystals from his hand, Kazuki was understandably freaked out and injured Soushi's left eye in self-defense (or perhaps to stamp out the source of the assimilation). As a result, Soushi develops a visible scar, a vertical line that runs from his forehead over his left eye and downwards. Since that time, and until their reconciliation in the series, Soushi's relationship with Kazuki became nearly non-existent. Soushi never implicated Kazuki for his eye injury and claimed he had accident while playing alone, but he also never bothered to speak with Kazuki about the matter when he recovered. Kazuki, who had mentally blocked out the incident and didn't remember why he injured Soushi's eye, then used his immense guilt to stay away from Soushi while Soushi, who knew the full story and felt equally guilty, did the same.
Soushi claimed this incident changed his outlook of things and that the wound Kazuki inflicted on him made him the way he is today. It can be interpreted that aside from the fact that his wound locked him out of piloting Fafner units and therefore led to him commanding the Siegfried system, the intense pain reminded him of his own existence. Towards the end of the series, Soushi (while held captive) taught Festum about pain (and its explicitly stated in the movie that this was his blessing to the Festum race), and so it fits his character’s narrative if pain helped shape him into what he is in the present. Pain was also something Soushi used to remind himself of the people he lost. As a result of Crossing (sharing consciousness with Fafner pilots), Soushi experienced and actively relived some of the pain the pilots experienced from time to time. He does this voluntarily, too, as he was given a wide array of medication to suppress (pain) flashbacks but he allowed memories of Shoko and Kouyo (dead and assimilated respectively) to torment him.
At the beginning of the series, Soushi was shown to be a reserved, no-nonsense tactician who, by his own admission, valued the Fafner units over the lives of his friends. He was pragmatic in that he was willing to take the morally ambiguous option. For instanced, he suggested that they use a Neo UN scouting plane as a decoy for Festum knowing full well that the plane has no real chance of escaping Festum. At the same time, however, he was reasonable in that he was willing to dial down that pragmatism if that was what his superior (or Kazuki) wanted. In two instances, for example, Soushi relented to Kazuki's desire to save people rather than leave them and prioritize the island despite his own misgivings. He actively pushed his friends away and didn't try to fix things with Kazuki, thinking it would only be a distraction. At some point, Soushi told Kazuki that he shouldn't get involved with his fellow pilots (friends and classmates) too much. Eventually, Soushi drove Kazuki away with his words and actions; Kazuki left shortly after he asked Soushi which one mattered most to him: Fafner or them.
Soushi lied, of course, about Fafner being more important than his friends. His monologue for the episode this exchange happens revealed as much:
'There was something I couldn't lose. In order to protect it I threw away as many small things as necessary...
..without realizing I would lose everything in the end as a result. I kept protecting my young self.'
Soushi was, at heart, someone who beared burdens on his own. It was something he couldn't help but do, having been forced to keep the secret of the island from his friends who, up until their first real encounter of Festum, still believed they were just a backwater island of Japan and that Tokyo still existed. But with the help of Maya, another childhood friend, Soushi did end up changing for the better when he finally understood that though he can read pilots' (Kazuki's, especially) thoughts and see their brainwaves when he was in Crossing with them, that didn't mean he understood them: Conversation was important too.
When Kazuki returned, we began to see Soushi's tender (and amusing) side. He cried, literally, when Kazuki returned and told him how he understood Soushi just a bit more, and Soushi actually asked Kazuki for five seconds - cut off Crossing for that long - as he composed himself. He was awkward and kind of literal about things, as shown when he finally relented on Maya's insistence that he take Kazuki and just talk it out with him and invited Kazuki to his quarters. There, when Kazuki notes that his room was kind of bare, he proceeded to take Kazuki on a tour through his room and explained that his room was not bare at all: He had a bed, a picture frame on the wall, his own washroom and...the vending machine was exactly eleven steps from his quarters.
And, if he told Kazuki before that Fafner units matter more to him than his friends, later on in the series, we're shown how in fact Soushi's sentiments are the complete opposite. 'No matter how dangerous the situation is, I will protect every pilot in the Siegfried System,’ he tells Tsubaki when she asks him who he’d save first if both Kazuki and Maya were in danger.
In season one, the people closest to Soushi were Kazuki, Maya, and Tsubaki Minashiro. Kazuki was shown to have a special bond with him, one that clearly years of having close to no social contact hadn't diminished by how fixated they were with each other. Soushi, for example, went to the place he heard Kazuki often visited to in an attempt to understand him. The dialogue for that scene is as follows:
Maya: I didn't know you came to places like this.
Soushi: I heard Kazuki comes here often. I just wanted to see it, too.
Maya: Do you want to share Kazuki's feelings that much?
Soushi: Is that a bad thing?
Soushi cries at the thought that Kazuki has begun to understand him. Kazuki is the last person he calls when he's captured by Mark Nicht. And in the end of the first season, he uses the last of strength to steer Kazuki back to Tatsuyajima and makes that promise to Kazuki that he'll return, no matter what. At any cost.
At the end of the series even his monologue seemed to be directed to Kazuki:
'Now I understand.
Even though life is filled with pain, I will choose ot exist. In order to meet you again.
As long as you believe in me...
I will return someday at any cost. To where you are.'
Maya, on the other hand, was someone the show implied Soushi was attracted to. (Or explicitly, if you count the relationship charts provided as of Fafner Exodus). She was one of the few people who could really get to Soushi and was the chief reason Soushi and Kazuki were able to make amends. When Soushi was hellbent on believing that Kazuki left for his own selfish reasons, Maya defended Kazuki and helped him see things another way: that even if Soushi could know what Kazuki saw, felt, and heard while they were in Crossing, there were things that Soushi could never possibly know. And Soushi took her words to heart. In fact, Maya was one of the people he seemed to notice small things about and, even before his change of heart, Soushi was shown to care for Maya actively. When they met on a mountain top, for example, Soushi berated Maya for having such a dangerous hobby (rock climbing) and tried to pass it off as him saying it because it could hurt their strategy if she got injured. He noticed that she still had chalk in her hands when he walked by at one time. He pushed for her rescue and risks the loss of one more Fafner in doing so. He even helped defend her mother and sister on their trial (for falsifying her Fafner aptitude test) by claiming he altered the data too because he didn't believe Maya was ready to pilot. Later on, Soushi was clearly hesitant to put Maya on the front line when she finally got a chance to pilot.
His relationship with Tsubaki was a bit more complicated. When asked who she was by Maya, Soushi explained that she's his sister who, for personal reasons, has had to live in ALVIS. But by his conversations with Tsubaki, though he wanted to protect her and cared for her greatly, show that Soushi looked at Tsubaki as the core of the island: someone who was his superior and who he'd willingly die for. He even asked for her permission prior to the North Pole mission knowing that it would be his last (though for different reasons than what it really ended up being).
By Fafner Heaven & Earth, just how much Soushi's character has changed in the two years he was away wasn't shown (we only ever see him at the end of the movie), but it's worth noting that he had spent that time communing with Festum, learning of a way to recreate his body physically, and was in Crossing with Kazuki for that long.
By Fafner Exodus, Soushi - prior to being forced back into active (piloting) duty by the new Core Minashiro Orihime - had turned all his attention as a researcher to finding a way to save Kazuki. He was still awkward (as evidenced by trying to cook soup with a stop watch), and had the same dynamics with Kazuki and Maya with, maybe, the possibility of having become more aware of how to he was physically attracted to her by the way he reacts to a topless Maya. (In the first season, Kazuki and him are shown to be clueless about why Kenji and Mamoru are so elated by the sight of women in yukata, ditto when they're in the communal bath. They wonder what's up what the girls are talking about when they're clearly talking about boobs.) With his left eye fixed (as a result of his physical body being remade), Soushi became able to pilot Fafner. He piloted Mark Nicht - the same Fafner that enslaved him in the first season - and became exceptionally efficient and ruthless at the same time when he fought against Festum.
Powers/Abilities: When Soushi was about five, his father took him to the lowest levels of ALVIS and introduced him to a little girl sleeping within a vat of glowing red liquid. This was his sister, Minashiro Tsubaki, or what was left of the fetus within his mother when she was assimilated by the Tatsumiyajima Mir. Ever since her mom's assimilation, Tsubaki has since been reborn as the island's Core. From then on, Soushi learned what he believed was the reason for his existence; to protect the island and to live not for himself, or anyone, but for the island alone.
Ever since its foundation and prior to its encounter with Festum, Tatsumiyajima has had a simple policy, and that was to keep its youth in the dark about things like the war with Festum, the existence of ALVIS facility beneath the island, and the fact that Japan no longer existed. This was to ensure they lived peacefully and for them - as one of their teachers explains in the series - to understand the value of peace. Being the son of the mayor of the Island (and then-Captain of ALVIS), Soushi was not afforded this luxury. In the memory Tsubaki lets Kazuki remember, the spectre of young Soushi tells Kazuki that (according to his dad) he was born to protect the core of the island and that he couldn't live for himself or anyone else.
This was the kind of mentality Soushi had as a kid and that eventually led to an event that, according to Soushi, defines who he is.
Sometime between 2146 and 2137, Soushi was influenced by Festum and driven with the desire to 'become one with Kazuki'. Details on this incident are scarce and the series only touches upon this through Kazuki's memory and (possibly) Tsubaki's knowledge of the incident through being the core of the Island. According to the spectre of Soushi Kazuki encounters, Soushi felt like he existed nowhere as a result of his father's demand that he live for the island alone and thought he should return a place where he could be one with Kazuki. After manifesting Festum crystals from his hand, Kazuki was understandably freaked out and injured Soushi's left eye in self-defense (or perhaps to stamp out the source of the assimilation). As a result, Soushi develops a visible scar, a vertical line that runs from his forehead over his left eye and downwards. Since that time, and until their reconciliation in the series, Soushi's relationship with Kazuki became nearly non-existent. Soushi never implicated Kazuki for his eye injury and claimed he had accident while playing alone, but he also never bothered to speak with Kazuki about the matter when he recovered. Kazuki, who had mentally blocked out the incident and didn't remember why he injured Soushi's eye, then used his immense guilt to stay away from Soushi while Soushi, who knew the full story and felt equally guilty, did the same.
Soushi claimed this incident changed his outlook of things and that the wound Kazuki inflicted on him made him the way he is today. It can be interpreted that aside from the fact that his wound locked him out of piloting Fafner units and therefore led to him commanding the Siegfried system, the intense pain reminded him of his own existence. Towards the end of the series, Soushi (while held captive) taught Festum about pain (and its explicitly stated in the movie that this was his blessing to the Festum race), and so it fits his character’s narrative if pain helped shape him into what he is in the present. Pain was also something Soushi used to remind himself of the people he lost. As a result of Crossing (sharing consciousness with Fafner pilots), Soushi experienced and actively relived some of the pain the pilots experienced from time to time. He does this voluntarily, too, as he was given a wide array of medication to suppress (pain) flashbacks but he allowed memories of Shoko and Kouyo (dead and assimilated respectively) to torment him.
At the beginning of the series, Soushi was shown to be a reserved, no-nonsense tactician who, by his own admission, valued the Fafner units over the lives of his friends. He was pragmatic in that he was willing to take the morally ambiguous option. For instanced, he suggested that they use a Neo UN scouting plane as a decoy for Festum knowing full well that the plane has no real chance of escaping Festum. At the same time, however, he was reasonable in that he was willing to dial down that pragmatism if that was what his superior (or Kazuki) wanted. In two instances, for example, Soushi relented to Kazuki's desire to save people rather than leave them and prioritize the island despite his own misgivings. He actively pushed his friends away and didn't try to fix things with Kazuki, thinking it would only be a distraction. At some point, Soushi told Kazuki that he shouldn't get involved with his fellow pilots (friends and classmates) too much. Eventually, Soushi drove Kazuki away with his words and actions; Kazuki left shortly after he asked Soushi which one mattered most to him: Fafner or them.
Soushi lied, of course, about Fafner being more important than his friends. His monologue for the episode this exchange happens revealed as much:
'There was something I couldn't lose. In order to protect it I threw away as many small things as necessary...
..without realizing I would lose everything in the end as a result. I kept protecting my young self.'
Soushi was, at heart, someone who beared burdens on his own. It was something he couldn't help but do, having been forced to keep the secret of the island from his friends who, up until their first real encounter of Festum, still believed they were just a backwater island of Japan and that Tokyo still existed. But with the help of Maya, another childhood friend, Soushi did end up changing for the better when he finally understood that though he can read pilots' (Kazuki's, especially) thoughts and see their brainwaves when he was in Crossing with them, that didn't mean he understood them: Conversation was important too.
When Kazuki returned, we began to see Soushi's tender (and amusing) side. He cried, literally, when Kazuki returned and told him how he understood Soushi just a bit more, and Soushi actually asked Kazuki for five seconds - cut off Crossing for that long - as he composed himself. He was awkward and kind of literal about things, as shown when he finally relented on Maya's insistence that he take Kazuki and just talk it out with him and invited Kazuki to his quarters. There, when Kazuki notes that his room was kind of bare, he proceeded to take Kazuki on a tour through his room and explained that his room was not bare at all: He had a bed, a picture frame on the wall, his own washroom and...the vending machine was exactly eleven steps from his quarters.
And, if he told Kazuki before that Fafner units matter more to him than his friends, later on in the series, we're shown how in fact Soushi's sentiments are the complete opposite. 'No matter how dangerous the situation is, I will protect every pilot in the Siegfried System,’ he tells Tsubaki when she asks him who he’d save first if both Kazuki and Maya were in danger.
In season one, the people closest to Soushi were Kazuki, Maya, and Tsubaki Minashiro. Kazuki was shown to have a special bond with him, one that clearly years of having close to no social contact hadn't diminished by how fixated they were with each other. Soushi, for example, went to the place he heard Kazuki often visited to in an attempt to understand him. The dialogue for that scene is as follows:
Maya: I didn't know you came to places like this.
Soushi: I heard Kazuki comes here often. I just wanted to see it, too.
Maya: Do you want to share Kazuki's feelings that much?
Soushi: Is that a bad thing?
Soushi cries at the thought that Kazuki has begun to understand him. Kazuki is the last person he calls when he's captured by Mark Nicht. And in the end of the first season, he uses the last of strength to steer Kazuki back to Tatsuyajima and makes that promise to Kazuki that he'll return, no matter what. At any cost.
At the end of the series even his monologue seemed to be directed to Kazuki:
'Now I understand.
Even though life is filled with pain, I will choose ot exist. In order to meet you again.
As long as you believe in me...
I will return someday at any cost. To where you are.'
Maya, on the other hand, was someone the show implied Soushi was attracted to. (Or explicitly, if you count the relationship charts provided as of Fafner Exodus). She was one of the few people who could really get to Soushi and was the chief reason Soushi and Kazuki were able to make amends. When Soushi was hellbent on believing that Kazuki left for his own selfish reasons, Maya defended Kazuki and helped him see things another way: that even if Soushi could know what Kazuki saw, felt, and heard while they were in Crossing, there were things that Soushi could never possibly know. And Soushi took her words to heart. In fact, Maya was one of the people he seemed to notice small things about and, even before his change of heart, Soushi was shown to care for Maya actively. When they met on a mountain top, for example, Soushi berated Maya for having such a dangerous hobby (rock climbing) and tried to pass it off as him saying it because it could hurt their strategy if she got injured. He noticed that she still had chalk in her hands when he walked by at one time. He pushed for her rescue and risks the loss of one more Fafner in doing so. He even helped defend her mother and sister on their trial (for falsifying her Fafner aptitude test) by claiming he altered the data too because he didn't believe Maya was ready to pilot. Later on, Soushi was clearly hesitant to put Maya on the front line when she finally got a chance to pilot.
His relationship with Tsubaki was a bit more complicated. When asked who she was by Maya, Soushi explained that she's his sister who, for personal reasons, has had to live in ALVIS. But by his conversations with Tsubaki, though he wanted to protect her and cared for her greatly, show that Soushi looked at Tsubaki as the core of the island: someone who was his superior and who he'd willingly die for. He even asked for her permission prior to the North Pole mission knowing that it would be his last (though for different reasons than what it really ended up being).
By Fafner Heaven & Earth, just how much Soushi's character has changed in the two years he was away wasn't shown (we only ever see him at the end of the movie), but it's worth noting that he had spent that time communing with Festum, learning of a way to recreate his body physically, and was in Crossing with Kazuki for that long.
By Fafner Exodus, Soushi - prior to being forced back into active (piloting) duty by the new Core Minashiro Orihime - had turned all his attention as a researcher to finding a way to save Kazuki. He was still awkward (as evidenced by trying to cook soup with a stop watch), and had the same dynamics with Kazuki and Maya with, maybe, the possibility of having become more aware of how to he was physically attracted to her by the way he reacts to a topless Maya. (In the first season, Kazuki and him are shown to be clueless about why Kenji and Mamoru are so elated by the sight of women in yukata, ditto when they're in the communal bath. They wonder what's up what the girls are talking about when they're clearly talking about boobs.) With his left eye fixed (as a result of his physical body being remade), Soushi became able to pilot Fafner. He piloted Mark Nicht - the same Fafner that enslaved him in the first season - and became exceptionally efficient and ruthless at the same time when he fought against Festum.
Like all Tatsumiyajima residents under 30, Soushi was concieved articifically and infused with Festum factor that makes him less suspectible to Festum assimilation and mind-reading. As a result of this Festum factor as well, Soushi is theoretically able to pilot a Nothung model Fafner. Because of his eye injury, however, in the first season he was deemed unsuitable for piloting because of his injured eye that reacted aversely to the standard assimilation phenomenom Fafners subject its pilots to.
By the end of Heaven & Earth, however, Soushi's body has been changed to that of a hybrid of Festum and human and its revealed in Fafner Exodus that his left eye was fixed as a result of this transformation.
Special abilities for Fafner Exodus include the ability to pilot Mark Nicht, a Salvator model Fafner whose high specs in addition to the "ghosts" haunting it makes it extremely difficult, if not straight out impossible, to pilot.
Keepsakes/Mementos:
• A framed picture of Soushi and his friends that has a gunshot hole in the middle of it.
• A vending machine exactly 11 steps from his room. :'D
•
Sample:
Damn them! Soushi thought, anger boiling through his very existence. The Neo UN had fired another nuclear missile with the aim to wipe out both Festum commanded by Kurusu's Mir and Tatsumiyajima. He should be used to this now; how many times had the Neo UN showed their gross disregard for them? As if they weren't humans too. But now- Kazuki was there, right at the missile's path with Mark Sein. There was no way he would hold out - Sein might, it had withstood far worse after all, but Kazuki's body had to be at its limit.
Move! Soushi willed himself to crawl back into existence faster. He didn't care how, he didn't care what he had to do, he just had to save Kazuki. Kazuki who'd given so much for the island already, Kazuki who was willing to pilot the very thing that could kill him in minutes and that had already taken away his eyesight-- all for what was essentially a gamble on his part.
He felt it then-- remembered in an instant what it was like to feel as his physical body blinked back into existence inside Mark Nicht's cockpit. This place evoked feelings of disgust - he could feel the hatred and nothingness the Salvator model exuded at the back of his mind, threatening to overwhelm him at any moment - but he had to do it. He had to shield Kazuki from the brunt of the nuclear blast. And that he did, instinctively steering Mark Nicht so it covered Mark Sein (and Kazuki) completely.
As expected, Mark Nicht had no problem taking the brunt of it, and for a moment Soushi wondered if that meant they were going to be fine. If he was going to be able to fulfill his promise to Kazuki after this (I'll return to you, at any cost...).
Suddenly though, the cockpit was enveloped in bright red warning lights and pain- it had been a while since he felt pain - began lancing up his arms. At some point, he closed his eyes and when he opened them, he saw the familiar green glow of Festum crystals growing out of his his arms and legs.
"Assimilating me... huh?" Soushi hissed.
Could he ward it off? Soushi focused on fighting that familiar feeling of fading out of existence through the haze of pain. In fact, the pain kept him going- it meant he was still here. Existing.
It seemed however that Mark Nicht had picked up on his efforts and he found himself being drained faster, faster-- until the pain itself began fading away.
To think he'd lose to this machine like this... Or maybe it was because he'd willed himself back to existence too quickly?
Either way, regret was worth nothing now.
At least, before I disappear- Soushi extended his mind, reaching for Kazuki through Crossing that still held somehow. He wondered if Kazuki was even conscious. Maybe it was better if he wasn't. The feeling of being assimilated wasn't particularly pleasant, even if it was experienced second-hand.
Kazuki- ... Kazuki....... Soushi whispered through their linked consciousness anyway.
I'm sorry. It seems that... I won't be able to return. Protect the island. And please.... live on, Kazuki...
And then there was nothingness.
Mindset:
Soushi will probably take it very calmly. Then again, after his experiences in the Festum world, being in a state of non-existence is nothing new. He'll wonder if they're really just data, though, or if they've just been trapped. But he'll definitely research before he does anything too drastic.
G̶̶l̨͡i̵͢t̷c͝͠h̕é͠s̷̷͡:
One of Soushi's biggest fears might be losing more people he cares about and/or being unable to protect them or help them. Losing Kazuki or Maya would be very high up on that list too as these are the two people he cares about the most.
One thing he doesn't want to do again: be used to fight his friends. In the first season of Fafner, Soushi, along with the Siegfried system, was kidnapped by Festum that was piloting Mark Nicht and used as the source of the Festum's strategy in the battle at North Pole.
His experiences in the first season has certainly given him a huge dislike for Mark Nicht too. His actions in Fafner Exodus show the depth of this: Up until Minashiro Orihime ordered him to pilot it, Soushi had been planning to have it dismantled and its core sunk to the ocean. He had it sealed in a facility resembling a sealed nuclear reactor and bound up in chains.
note: I was wondering if I could enter Soushi as his sixteen year old self from Fafner Heaven & Earth while leaving the option to age him up to Fafner Exodus open for later? :)