Shiki Tohno
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Shiki Tohno (遠野 志貴 Tōno Shiki?): is the protagonist of the popular Japanese visual novel and anime series Tsukihime and the 2d fighting game Melty Blood by TYPE-MOON.
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[edit] Description
Tohno Shiki is the protagonist of Tsukihime. He is anemic, and due to an accident 8 years prior to the events in the game, developed the ability to see the death of all things due to his close brush with death. This ability, the "Mystic Eyes of Death Perception", enable him to destroy anything just by cutting its death "lines" with a sharp object, and also to "pierce its dot", which destroys its existence completely. Regeneration and resurrection will not work as the world considers the object to have never existed in the first place. However to see the lines, Shiki must be capable of understanding the concept of death for the object, at the beginning of the game Shiki has problems seeing the lines of inanimate objects such as buildings, and cannot see the dots at all, but as the game progresses and he uses his eyes more he eventually gets more used to them and can see the dots of buildings. Since human beings were not meanth to see "death" in the first place, t€he usage of his eyes causes some stress on his brain, which could lead to the bursting of blood vessels in his brain.
The prologue of the game explains how Shiki obtained his mystic eyes, through a close brush with death in an accident. No one believes he can see the lines, except for Aozaki Aoko whom he meets when he escapes the hospital and wanders off into a grassy field. Aoko talked to him and helped him to understand his eyes, and also gave him the Mystic Eye Sealing glasses she stole from her sister, Aozaki Touko. These glasses allowed Shiki to live a normal life, with them on he could no longer see the lines, and the glasses are also nearly impossible to break (Arcueid mentions even she was incapable of breaking them).
At the start of the game, Shiki has just been called back to the Tohno mansion after an eight year absence. His father, Tohno Makihasa, has died and his sister, Tohno Akiha, calls him back to take his place as eldest son of the household. Akiha, who he hasn't seen in eight years, is now a proper lady of a high class family, lives with the twin maids, Hisui and Kohaku, who lived at the mansion since a young age.
[edit] Past
Tohno Shiki is actually Nanaya Shiki, the eldest son of the Nanaya family, a family of killers with special abilities that hunted down non-humans. They lived in a secluded mansion in the mountains and were one day wiped out when Tohno Makihisa and Kishima Kouma from a branch of the Tohno family, powerful demon hybrids attacked them and slaughtered everyone except Shiki. Makihisa adopted Shiki because he had the same name as his actual son SHIKI (Although the Japanese characters used are different).
Shiki lived in a detached, Japanese style building on the grounds of the Tohno western style mansion. He was lonely at first, because he got the feeling that he was an outsider and the Tohno family did not really want him. However, he eventually managed to get along well with the other children at the mansion, his sister Akiha, his brother SHIKI, and another cheerful girl, Hisui. They used to play together frequently, but it all changed one hot summer day.
The Tohno family has the blood of demon-hybrids, each member of the family has special powers and depending on how strong the Tohno blood is, has to constantly fight it to remain sane. If they fail, they will "invert", a process called "Inversion Impulse", and become a monster with no thought except to kill others. It is the duty of the head of the Tohno Household to elimiante those who have inverted. Tohno SHIKI had been chosen by Roa's previous incarnation as his new host and when Roa's personality surfaced, submusing SHIKI's will that was keeping him from inverting, he inverted, and tried to kill Akiha. Shiki managed to shield Akiha in time, and was killed. SHIKI was killed when Makihisa arrived on the scence as it was his duty to kill those of the family who had inverted. However, neither died, Shiki survived because Akiha gave half her life force to keep him alive, and SHIKI who had turned into a monster survived by taking away half of Shiki's life, and was locked away by his father in a underground cell as he hoped that his son would return to normal.
In the meantime, Makihisa thought up a ruse to deceive the world. He could not simply say that the eldest son of the Tohno household, an influential name in the business world, had died or disappeared. So he had Shiki take SHIKI's place as the eldest son, saying that the adopted son had died in an accident. He sent Shiki off to live with the Arimas, a branch of the Tohno family on the pretext that someone who could die anytime was not fit to be the eldest son of the Tohno household, hypnotized him into forgetting everything and started raising Akiha as the next head of the family, and instructed her never to let Shiki back to the mansion, an order which she later disobeyed. SHIKI on the other hand was kept alive in a underground cell, but he never fully went back to normal, as Roa's personality was still there.
[edit] Relation with Roa/SHIKI
In the accident 8 years ago, SHIKI took half of Shiki's life and is living off that. One of SHIKI's abilities was "fusion", and both SHIKI and Shiki formed a 2 way telepathic link of sorts, enabling Shiki to have "dreams" where he stalked the streets in search of victims to drain blood from, when what he was actually seeing was SHIKI's actions.
In all routes except Kohaku's, Roa/SHIKI hates Shiki and wants to kill him for making him lose everything. Taking his place as the eldest son of the Tohno house hold, his sister Akiha and his very name and existence. Roa/SHIKI is the primary antagonist, except for Kohaku's route where SHIKI only plays a small part, and in a chance encounter on the street with Shiki in Nanaya mode, have a candid discussion on killers and how they fit into society before parting ways amiably.
[edit] Personality
Shiki is a fairly normal high school student most of the time. Due to his close brush with death, he is not overly concerned about dying, and instead seeks to cherish every moment of his life. However he has an alternative personality, that of Nanaya Shiki, a highly trained killer. This personality only awakens when he is in serious danger of dying, or when he spots something in-human. When this personality starts taking control, he gets symptoms similar to an anemia attack, and frequently thinks that it is simply that. In "Nanaya mode" Shiki has highly enhanced strength, speed, reflexes and has all the skills of a highly trained killer, and can actually fight with super human enemies such as the Death Apostles.
[edit] Powers
As an anemic high school student, Shiki is practically defenseless except for his knife, a relic of the Nanaya family, Nanatsu-Yoru given to him by Kohaku. However even that is dangerous with his Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, simply cutting the lines will destroy any object and no muscle power is needed. Nrvnqsr Chaos couldn't believe that Shiki was actually able to harm with just a pocket knife, and by the time he realised that he could not regenerate from the wounds Shiki was inflicting, his pride still refused to back down and admit that a Death Apostle could lose to a mere Human, enabling Shiki to pierce his dot, the dot of the chaos that was his existence, destroying him utterly.
When Shiki's Nanaya blood awakens due to a life or death situation, or when faced with non-humans, Shiki becomes significantly stronger and faster, as well as obtaining the skills of a highly trained assassin. The best example of this is in the fight with Akiha at the end of Kohaku's arc, Shiki and Akiha stalk each other through the school and Shiki was able to move fast enough such that he seemed to disappear from her sight, as well as climbing walls and reaching the celing with momentum alone.
[edit] Trivia
- By the time of Melty Blood Shiki can apparently cook well enough that Arcueid can't stand the idea of Shiki not cooking breakfast for her anymore
