Breaking Points

[Katsurou Atsuregi]

I'm getting back into the community--I'll admit, I've been through some shit, but I'll make a different post about that later. However, before I get back into things and start roleplaying here again... I decided to make a little thread, where we compare characters in our past or present from various roleplays who have reached a mental breaking point, for some reason or another. I'm starting this because this character of mine has hit a serious wall, and broken down completely. And I want to see if anyone else's character has gone through anything worse.

So, here's the story of a man named Kaito Auroh.

Kaito Auroh was born as Kyouji, orphaned shortly after birth. Before too long, however, Kyouji was adopted by a couple who lived on the outskirts of the Village Hidden in Rain, and given his name, Kaito Auroh. Time passes--around age ten, Kaito meets a girl named Sara, and the two get along well. They're the closest of friends. However, two years later, something happened.

Kaito was attacked by Sara, one day--Sara had wielded a wakizashi, and attacked Kaito, cutting into his chest multiple times and torturing him, killing him slowly. However, soon, Kaito's alternate personality, Shin, who is very violent and rash, came forth--grabbing the wakizashi from Sara and stabbing her through the chest, killing her and saving Kaito. Kaito returned home, where he locked himself in for six years...

...and that's just backstory.

Kaito was now eighteen, and he'd forgotten all about Sara and why he was afraid of others. Kaito decided to do something with his life--he went to the Village Hidden in Rain to become a shinobi. After enrolling in the shinobi academy, Kaito met a few notable people in his life. Sumi, a thirteen year old who would become Kaito's first girlfriend. He then meets Mako, a girl with autism, who didn't seem to want to interact with Kaito all that much. Kaito also met Akane Jisatsu, another thirteen-year-old girl who Kaito became friends with due to her cheery demeanor, and her nearly always having a smile. Taikashi Fuuma followed soon after, becoming Kaito's rival and best friend after they fought, and their fight ended in a draw. Koutaro Suchiru was also there--he occasionally picked on Kaito, but more playfully, and also helped Kaito and Sumi get together. However, there was one more person of note--Masaru, who didn't particularly like Kaito, in good part because Kaito was dating someone five years younger than him.

Kaito and Sumi were kind of close, however, one day, bandits attacked the Village Hidden in Rain. Kaito and Taikashi fought side-by-side, and fought hard--however, Kaito was overpowered before long. He was thrown aside with relative ease, and the first person who came to his aid... was not Taikashi, nor Sumi, nor anyone else but Mako. Mako rushed to help him, but couldn't do much--still, it was a gesture that Kaito would remember for quite a while. However, Sumi did not spend much time around others, anymore--including Kaito. Kaito started talking to Mako a lot more, before resolving to break up with Sumi--even if Mako didn't want to date him at the time, Kaito still clearly saw that his relationship with Sumi was easily declining. Kaito went to break up with Sumi, but she broke up with him, first--either way, Kaito was showing interest in Mako and spending more and more time with her, and Masaru, Mako's best friend, did not like that. Masaru challenged Kaito to a fight--if Kaito were to win, then Kaito could do whatever he wanted, however, if Masaru were to win, then Kaito would leave both of them alone. Mako interrupted the fight, before telling Kaito she wasn't interested in that sort of thing and thought it best to just give it time. Kaito and Masaru did not end up fighting. Either way, a year passed--Kaito and Taikashi left the village, and did not interact with Mako until they returned.

When they returned, Mako seemed to have forgotten about Kaito, or at least Kaito's appearance had changed too much. Kaito fixed that by doing something only he would do--causing Mako to give him a hug, because of it. Though a quick one. Kaito eventually resolved to ask Mako out, however, Masaru beat him to the punch. Masaru ended up asking Mako out--in part, to keep Kaito from doing so. Once he learned of this, Kaito was in disbelief. He went to drink away his sorrows... and woke up the next day, with Koutaro Suchiru and Sumi by his bedside in the hospital. Kaito began to drunkenly rant about how Sumi was still important to him--however, Koutaro was having none of that shit. Koutaro punched Kaito over, and over, and over... eventually, knocking the memory and the ability to recognize faces from him. Kaito took over a year in the hospital to recover enough to walk around freely--and then, Kaito spent another year away from the other villagers to find his memories.

Once the year had passed, Kaito had met with Taikashi Fuuma--he'd remembered who Taikashi was, at the least. Taikashi told Kaito about how both Taikashi and Mako were getting married--Taikashi to a woman named Hikaru, and Mako to Masaru. Kaito didn't think this much, at the time. However, before too long... all of Kaito's memories came flooding back to him. Kaito decided that he had to stop Mako's marriage--and ended up succeeding. Mako and Masaru broke up, however, Mako didn't want to have to deal with Kaito's flirting with her. So, three years pass, and the two don't talk much at all.

Here is when shit gets dark.

After the three years pass, Kaito overhears Masaru challenging Mako to a fight. He decides to watch, and observe Masaru's fighting, to challenge him later. However, Masaru ends up frying Mako's legs--injuring her heavily. Kaito helps Mako to the hospital, and sits by her for a short time. Before too long, Mako holds Kaito's hand for being there for her--and before long, the two respark their old flame with a kiss. They start dating, however, they don't even get a chance to go on one date before Mako's asked to report to the central mines. Kaito doesn't get any chance to see her before she leaves, and he's left alone and waiting at the gates for her return.

One day, however, a large group of people returned from the mines... Kaito knew that Taikashi and Mako were members of the mine group, however, they weren't in sight. So, Kaito asked them how Mako and Taikashi were faring.

Mako and Taikashi were dead.

Now, this may not seem like much, but consider this. Mako was the one person that Kaito felt he could trust completely--that, and he was truly in love with her. Kaito pledged to throw his life away for her, but failed--she'd died, and he could do nothing about it. Mako had saved his life a couple of times, and Mako was there for him whenever he needed her. As well as this, there was Taikashi--someone who could be said to have been like a brother to Kaito. Taikashi was Kaito's best friend, and he almost trusted him as much as he trusted Mako. Kaito had gone to him multiple times for advice--mostly on relationships. However, just in general, when Kaito needed someone to talk to or someone to train with, Taikashi was there for him. Both of them were there for him. And now, they were both torn away from him.

Upon learning of this, Kaito fell to the ground, crying. He could not believe it, and yet, he had to, with so many reporting the same thing. As of right now, Kaito's will is still completely broken, and he is curled up into a ball, crying. This was several hours after learning of this. Kaito has never felt so alone in his life--not even during the aforementioned six years of solitude. However, Kaito's ties to the village are also no longer existant... Meaning Kaito's life may be coming to an end soon, as well.

I know there are some ways that characters can end up even more broken than this--but, this is the worst that one of my characters have been through, so far. So I'd like to know if someone can one-up me. Sure, some of the details of the story were removed for concision's sake, and it may have less impact than expected, but, still. What stories do you guys have?

EDIT: As if it couldn't have gotten worse, Kaito just got his arm blown off. Yep.

[Game Master]

I woke myself up to reply to this.

I'll tell you the story of Alexander Carvardukaras, called the Dissident King by Gods and men, gifted with the painful power of Enlightenment and the burdened power of Freedom. So, let's rewind about ten-thousand years prior, and set the stage.

Backstory I: The FelGoddess:

Backstory II: City of Icarus:

They said that his birth was miracle. Born to a Legendary Gladiator and a Disgraced Noble, Alexander was stillborn when he emerged from the womb. Yet somehow, as his warm body had began to cool he started to breath and cry again like any living child. It was impossible, but it happened to maintain and invisible balance.

From that day, Alexander's life was one of suffocating attention. Strangers fawned over him, friends fought over him, and his father inexplicably murdered his mother for a chance to hold him. His father was clad in chains until he was finally executed, but Alexander was far from alone. He was surrounded by people his entire life, yet the unreasonable affection they felt towards him seemed to possess them to do horrific things from time to time. Alexander as a result grew up with a dislike for being touched or smothered, as it brought back some horrific memories.

Yet, Alexander eventually met two other people who shared something oddly similar to his story. A girl named Kristina was of noble birth, and she was able to sneak out of her home quite often as she was relentlessly neglected. She had the bare essentials to live, but hardly anything more even those she had to plead and fight for. The other was Jericho, a low-borne boy like Alexander. Jericho was never wanted. Even the orphanage he currently lived at abused him simply for the being there. Even stranger, unlike the other people in Icarus, Jericho had dark skin and slanted eyes.

They talked for a while, more enthralled that each one of the three did not give the typical reactions to one another's presence. When they returned to their homes, they were equally shocked to discover that somehow the excessive emotions people felt towards them were completely gone. Sure, people still liked Alexander, and Kristina's parents were still neglectful and inattentive, and people still disliked Jericho, but no new people did this, and when before strangers would show these emotions now they did not. It was a sign of relief!

From that point on, the three of them had become fast friends. Kristina wasn't as able to leave as she used to, with her parents paying more attention now than they had, but she still came to see them when she could. Alexander and Jericho bonded rapidly, and even sought out a dual apprenticeship under a renowned carpenter to better themselves and earn money. Both of them had become quite infatuated with Kristina, and they wished to earn her favor through their works.

After one particularly difficult project was concluded, Alexander and Jericho were meant to meet up with Kristina and celebrate their hard work. As she arrived however she was trampled by a horse, dying before their eyes. And this is the first moment the future changed, because The Dread God was startled that he could feel her death rippling across reality. He arrived to discover that the young woman's corpse leaked massive amounts of Sin Energy, though the majority of it had already been expelled.

He realized from his appearance that Jericho was indeed a mortal descendant of The Dragon, and in this moment of recognition revised his original plan. He had decided long ago that when he found the curse victim he would eradicate them, but now seeing his only friend's face looking horrified at the death of the young woman, he took mercy upon them. He could not give her back to them- not in the same way. But, he could give them something, and in giving them something he believed that he would also save them from the curse that inhabited them.

The Dread God took Kristina's broken body and breathed life into the corpse, not demanding that it heal from the experience but that it survive the trauma. He reached out to the core of existence and bid it to rewind time just a few minutes, his presence concealed and his actions hidden. Kristina was no longer alive, and the person that now wore her body was a young woman named Tarsi, who believed it was Kirstina in everything except name. Alexander and Jericho were none the wiser to the death of their friend, the name Tarsi coming to them as the name Kristina vanished from the lips of every person in Icarus.

Tarsi was hospitalized after the incident, and her parents were enraged at her disobedience. They disowned her to the very streets she wished to explore in her time of need, leaving Jericho and Alexander to pick up their financial slack on Tarsi's medical bills. They lost their jobs due to the scandal, their renowned teacher wanting nothing more to do with them and condemning them. They quickly became undesirables in any traditional profession, and as money ran out it seemed that inexplicably Tarsi's condition worsened with each passing week. They were left with no alternatives.

Alexander and Jericho sold themselves as slaves to the only place that would take them- the arena. Despite being slaves, the more famous and renowned gladiators received limited freedom and and money to spend. The money they made from selling themselves saw that Tarsi would receive treatment for many more weeks, but Alexander and Jericho now found themselves locked into a game of survival for the entertainment of all of Icarus. They worked together and through observation began to learn sword play and the basics of Pankration, only to discover that while Alexander was the son of the Gladiator, Jericho was in a different dimension all together. His skills were unmatched it seemed, and he only got better with each passing fight. While Alexander also increased in skill, he was much less adept at fighting than Jericho.

Within days, they surged in popularity. The strange-looking boy and his sidekick were a force to be reckoned with, and the renown they gained was enough for them to catch the eye of the Arena honchos. They attempted to get Jericho and Alexander to separate on multiple occasions so that they could observe how much better one might be than the other, but any attempts to pull them apart in the slave pens ended in violence, and the honchos weren't about to throw away all that potential money.

With the fame they garnered, Alexander and Jericho were able to barter for payment and limited freedom. Immediately they went to see Tarsi, who to their horror had become comatose. Their money saw to her treatment and care, and continued to do so as long as they kept fighting, kept winning, and kept surviving. Alexander and Jericho had a wonderful run, and as their year-long anniversary approached they agreed that for just one tournament they would fight separately, and meet in the final round.

This was not to last. The Arena is a sacred tradition to many in Icarus, and whispers of cheating can have dangerous consequences. An opponent that Jericho fought complained that Jericho was using some kind of herbal concoction to give himself his prowess and skill. It didn't long for the rumor to spread, and Jericho was son being chased by an angry mob. They chased him to the edge of Icarus, where rather than face death from the stones they held he fell into the clouds below.

Alexander was grief stricken, yet something very odd happened within the week. When he had next gone to visit Tarsi, she had woken up. Not only had she woken up, but she was able to speak. Movement was difficult because of the atrophy, but she seemed more vibrant than she had in a very long time, which brought a great joy to Alexander. Yet, this also brought great tragedy. Tarsi's hospital stay was not yet over, and with Jericho gone Alexander was forced to fight more to pick up the slack.

He fought himself to the brink of exhaustion, and in his free hours tended to the ailing but healing Tarsi, whose face and body seemed more full with color each day. As the tournament approached and Alexander signed up, he heard tale of where the man that spread the rumor about Jericho might reside. He told Tarsi his intentions, and she pleaded with him to not seek vengeance. Alexander ignored her and the next night he headed into the depths of Icarus.

He confronted the man there and meant to kill him, but stopped himself before the death blow could be struck. Despite everything in him desiring the man's death, he felt even more strongly about so deliberately harming somebody he had been caring for just to get petty vengeance. Leaving the man there, Alexander proceeded to wonder the innards of Icarus for a few hours, before he fell into an odd chamber.

There, he met with the wilted form of young Icarus, still a child bound to the core of the city. Icarus told Alexander the origin of the city, and his role in in maintaining it. He knew how selfish it was but he pleaded for death by Alexander's blade. The city would crash, but he could finally be free. Alexander felt sick to his stomach as he left the chamber to go back to Tarsi's side, the young boy screaming and crying behind him for a merciful death fading into the distance.

He told Tarsi about the man he had spared, but she detected something more had occurred, which Alexander denied. He simply stated he was tired from all the walking and lack of sleep, reminding himself that he had a match to attend today. Alexander was uncoordinated and took an apparently fatal stab to the stomach, hitting the ground in apparent death. Yet, as the blade withdrew from his abdomen the wound began to close. Alexander and his opponent both began to panic.

The Arena heads found a new way to spin this- the immortal gladiator Alexander. He was put through fight after fight once it was discovered that he could heal, fighting increasingly odd and insane things from the surface of Earth. By the time the tournament officially started, Tarsi had become well enough to walk and been discharged. She stayed with Alexander in his gladiator's quarters, still too frail to be left alone for long periods of time but well enough to start watching Alexander's fights routinely.

At the final round of the tournament, something ominous appeared in the sky above them. Clouds that looked like billowing smoke rolled over the arena, and meteors began to fall upon them. The smoke descended in small twister and revealed a pair of orange, glowing orbs behind the thick cloud. Alexander's blood chilled as the voice behind the smoke made itself known.

"I have come to fulfill my promise."

Alexander's heart lurched as Jericho relentlessly besieged the city. Despite Alexader's best efforts Jericho could not be harmed, his body and skin unbreakable as some exotic material might well be. With one cleave of his hand, Jericho tore the city asunder, and it began to twist and fall in the air. Alexander knew that with one more, Jericho had killed Icarus. Alexander rushed for the stands and made after Tarsi, who wobbled to stand as he grabbed her. In that same moment, Jericho was upon them.

He grabbed Alexander and Tarsi, pulling the two apart. He threw Alexander towards the ground, and Alexander's last conscious thought that day would be noticing how fast it rushed to meet him. When he awoke, it was among rubble and fire. Bodies left in gory tatters littered the surroundings, yet the stirring of movement broke him from shock. Alexander stood and heard a chain rattling, finding that somehow a chain had become grafted into his arm. The chain was a hateful black and felt cold inside of his forearm, but dangled down to the hilt of a sword equally black in color.

The movement stirred again, and Alexander could see the source this time. Not one, but several creatures emerged from the rubble, vaguely humanoid but twisted and horrible. Alexander grabbed at the sword with his other arm only to realize that it too was not unblemished. It was gleaming, matte gray in color and looked like the carapace of a beetle wrapped around his arm. In fact, it did not look too dissimilar to some of limbs of the misshappen creatures before him.

He swung at them with the mysterious sword, and they took deep cuts. Yet, not unlike himself the beasts would rise again. Seeing no alternative he decided to run as fast as he could to escape the beasts, the creatures on his trail as he moved through the burning wreckage of an entire city. He saw blue and red lights in the distance, curious and desperate enough to approach them.

As he bounded through he heard the men shout something strange, and then he heard it again. He felt his chest and face start to sting, and then his whole body. He thought the loud noises were his bones crunching from pressure, but he had heard that happen before. This was a sound not unlike what fireworks made. Yet, despite all the pain he did not go down, an remained standing. As he examined himself, is was as though whatever had caused the pain was never there. He continued to run, leaving the people with black shapes in their hand apparently confused for the beasts behind him to deal with.

He ran for miles, intending to stop once exhaustion took him but it never did. Instead, he felt his eye start to burn and grabbed at it, crying out in pain as he did so. He felt a swift kick from what he recognized as armored grieves, immediately on his feet once he was again stable. None-other than Tarsi stood before him, an ethereal looking blade in hand, and without a word she attacked him. Alexander was too shocked to defend himself proper. Their were too many questions, too much at once to consider. Moreover, Tarsi was much, MUCH stronger than he could have ever fairly assumed.

Just as it seemed she had him, Jericho once more appeared and broke the two up. He engaged with Tarsi, leaving a dumbstruck Alexander pinned to the ground with his own sword through his stomach. Tarsi put up a brave and valiant fight, but in the end Jericho's power proved to be beyond belief. He toyed with her first, all the while Alexander struggled to to get up and help her fight, yet the sword held him fast. Then, in one decisive blow, Jericho's hand was in her chest. He apologized with a sincere tone but wore a smile upon his face. Then he dropped her corpse to the ground unceremoniously, before walking over to Alexander and releasing the sword from the earth. As he did so, he vanished.

Alexander buried Tarsi with confusion and grief in his Heart, before following the closest thing to a road he could find. Arriving in a large city, Alexander was homeless and destitute. Their language was foriegn to him, and he could not understand what they had said. All he knew was that one day, the very earth beneath his feet rumbled and he and others cast their gazes towards the horizon. A new mountain range that seemed perfectly straight had been formed in the distance, with an eerie red light emanating from behind it up into the sky. Each and every day, the red line expanded around the distance edges of view, seeming to want to enclose the city.

It was here that Alexander found companionship in the name of an Orphan girl named Yudi. She didn't speak his language, but she also didn't talk much. Alexander entertained her with tricks and stunts, and he rewarded him with laughter and smiles. Despite this, the weight of everything was weighing on Alexander. A normal person would have broke by now, but terrible experiences in his early life prepared him from trauma. But it couldn't prepare him for what he had to do next.

It had been a month since the red line completely encapsulated the horizon around the city. Each day since then, it seemed to get closer and closer. to the city limits. It was as though they were being boxed in for something, and with trade impossible for this long supplies were running low. People were becoming suspicious of one another. But among the homeless, things didn't change much. There were more homeless, people about to become homeless, and all sorts of nasty things. But, Alexander and Yudi had each other. Everything was fine, until the changes began.

People began to turn ghost white first. Then strange growths bubbled and writhed beneath their skin. Their bodies started to twist, and the yowled in pain as the Dissentientibus overtook them, and started to devour their souls. Yudi too was afflicted by this change, and she writhed in fear and tears on Alexander's lap. He cooed to her, and tried to calm her, and even as his hands reached around her head and neck he promised her that everything would be alright. The period of his sentence was the snap of her neck, and she fell limp to the ground.

Even as the chaos swirled around him, Alexander laid Yudi's corpse to rest and then set upon the others in the city. Those who were still mid change or about to change, and even those who simply might change and were within swords reach had their throats cut. That day, Alexander slaughtered eleven-thousand humans, and he killed five hundred-thousand more monsters. He fought them for days, untiring, unyielding like a machine until he learned their weakness was their heart. Their chest was too dense to pierce, like an armor plate. Through the collar when the leapt, base of the neck. Instant Death for them.

A week passed, and Alexander sat atop a mountain of corpses when Jericho once more appeared before him, that same smile from when he killed Tarsi upon his face. Alexander was too defeated to fight him when he approached. He was too mentally exhausted to threaten him. Even as Jericho's hands wrapped around Alexander's head he didn't struggle. He wanted death to come to him. Instead, Jericho spoke.

"Now you can understand."

Alexander's mind was flooded with the truth. The truth behind Tarsi. The truth behind her sword and his sword. And he learned why Tarsi was dying, and what Jericho had done by accident that fateful day he disappeared. If Jericho had not jumped, an even more horrifying future awaited everything... and it would be Alexander that caused the apocalypse. Seeing the only way to change the future was to stop Tarsi from dying through performing the function she was created for- to keep the Sin Energy inside Alexander and Jericho in check- Jericho accepted Sera's gift of power and the madness of suffering that came alongside it.

Yet through it all, Jericho's willpower was such that he was able to, somewhat, fight the insanity. He knew that Alexander would spread the curse to others, and that the rest of the population would mutate far beyond what Alexander would have, and lost their humanity in the process. So he set about cleansing the infected, using the red line to be his quarantine zone, but a lot of his actions were just spiteful and maddening from power he could not control.

A last act, Jericho uses his willpower to finally and completely suppress Sera's will. He makes himself vulnerable for just a moment, and then runs himself through the chest with Alexander's blade, hugging his friend as he dies. His final gift to Alexander was the curse of Enlightenment. Should Alexander ever have a question, he could know the answer. Jericho believed that in the wrong hands, his ill-obtained power that Sera herself had stolen would be easily abused, but a person like Alexander would not do such.

Alexander knelt embracing the corpse of his friend, attempting to find the tears that would not fall. He sat motionless for three days on a dead world where ever heartbeat echoed towards the sky. This was when the vengeful entity of Death appeared. It condemned Alexander for being a monster, and told him that he had no soul. Death would not claim the Dissident because it could not claim them, but for the lost children Death demanded retribution.

Death ripped Alexander from his dimension and placed him in the depths of hidden, horrible Tartarus, binding him with heavy chains that would not break at the base of a tower that extended infinitely upward. His jailers were the goddess of discord Eris, who tortured him with visions of his past made nightmare and Izanami, who would subject him to horrific physical tortures at her leisure as his body always repaired itself. There Alexander was to be imprisoned forever, suffering for crimes that he did not commit because the Gods needed something to blame for a horrific blow to their precious cycle of reincarnation.

Centuries later, in the darkness of Tartarus, Alexander's eyes adjust to something he'd nearly forgotten. In the distance, there is a tiny light...