Ryo Ashihara

[Player]

Name/Handle: Airdra
Age: I’m 27.
AIM/YIM/MSN/Plurk/Etc: KamenFirestorm on AIM, but it’s easiest to hit me on plurk at Airdra
Email: airdra400 at yahoo dot com
Current Characters: N/A

[Character]
Character Name: Ryo Ashihara

Source: Kamen Rider Agito

History/Pull Point: Wiki!

Ryo will be pulled after the events of his series as he’s wandering the world.

Personality:

His sudden ability to become Gills, as well as his getting wrapped up in the events surrounding the Overlord of Darkness, have had a rather unpleasant side effect upon most of his personal relationships—everyone he’s ever loved or cared about has either abandoned him or died. When we first see him in the series, his father has killed himself due to terror at being imbued with the Seed of Agito. When Ryo starts gaining the ability to transform into Gills, he cannot quite control it, and he seeks help. This succeeds in his driving away his swim coach and his girlfriend. Later on, he meets another girl, Aki, who understands what he’s going through—she’s developing odd powers as well. Unfortunately, Aki is killed by the Unknown. Ryo later meets another girl, Risa, who dies thanks to the interference of the Overlord of Darkness. His history of close personal relationships really isn’t that great, and he’s at the point where he’s distancing himself from any further close relationships with anyone else. It’s just safer that way.

Ryo is not one to suffer fools lightly. He has on more than one occasion given individuals who have irritated him a punch to the face. In several cases, the individuals he has punched were police officers—authority figures seem to mix just as well with him as fools do. Assaulting an officer doesn’t seem to bother him in the least—in one instance, the officer punched, Hojo, had led a task force to capture Agito that caught Gills in the crossfire. Ryo says, “I’ve always wanted to do this” as he punches Hojo, which is made worse by the fact that he’s just forced a police car to stop so his friend inside can escape. This, despite knowing Hojo is a policeman with quite a bit of pull with the local police force.

Although Ryo prefers to project a gruff façade to the world, he does have a softer side. In one instance, he helps a runaway boy flee from the relatives that are chasing him. He’s a bit brusque with the kid, but he does say he’ll take the boy wherever he wants to go. In the process, he shows the child that you cannot run from your problems, even if he gets a little tough love with it along the way. He is also grumpy with Risa, constantly telling her that no, she’s not his girlfriend, even though he secretly likes her—and she knows it. He also makes it a point to grumpily tell her he hates cake when she asks him what kind he wants for his birthday, although he’s smiling about the potential cake and that she cares enough to get it for him when she leaves.

As Gills, Ryo’s personality shifts. Gills is a somewhat uncontrollable life form. He has been described as a manifestation of emotion, and he throws himself into his fights. He is not always willing to abandon a foe, even if the foe has been soundly defeated and probably should not be killed. He doesn’t speak much in this form, mostly communicating in growls and primal screams, although he is capable of speech.

Despite the fact that as Gills, he tends to go out of control in battle, Ryo is now at ease with his transformations. This was not always the case, particularly since in the early days, becoming Gills would cause damage to his body and was essentially slowly killing him. Now that he’s absorbed additional power from Mana and Koji, his transformations are stable and as a result, he’s focused on using his abilities as Gills to protect those that need it. This is in part thanks to a series of discussions he had with Kino, the mentally unbalanced doctor who had the ability to transform into Another Agito.

At one point, his powers, along with Shouichi’s and Kino’s, are stolen by the Overlord of Darkness. Shouichi and Kino seem resigned to having their powers taken, but Ryo, whose powers are the most unstable, is the initially the one who refuses to allow things to end this way. When the group is still attacked by one of the Unknown, he is the one in front shielding the others despite the fact that he has no powers. He shields them until Shouichi shows up and is able to get the powers returned.

The first time Ryo transformed into Exceed Gills, he was fighting Kino, who had tried to kill him on several occasions. He had Kino on the ropes, and he was very close to killing the other man when he was yelled at to stop by Koji, who had just saved his life through a power donation. It was enough to break through the fog of his rage, and he released Kino from his tentacles…though not without kicking Kino in the chest and sending him flying off the edge of a bridge and into the water below. Once he’s de-transformed, he immediately jumps off the bridge and into the water. He’s a strong enough swimmer that he’s able to save Kino, even though Kino was trying his hardest to kill him—and still claims he’ll kill Ryo after he’s been saved. Ryo doesn’t say this was because it was the right thing to do or because Koji’s pleas had any effect; he saved Kino because Kino inspired him before descending into madness.

Despite the fact that he has really terrible luck, Ryo does not seem to bemoan or dwell on his fate. When this is brought up by Kino after Ryo has saved his life, Ryo claims that he is used to being betrayed. He does get upset and angry by the turns his life takes, but he works hard not to show that to anyone. His girlfriend dies (pick one)? He’s not really one to talk about it or get anyone else involved in his problems. He just internalizes the pain, moves on, and, if the misfortune was Unknown-induced, goes Gills on the monster responsible.

In one instance, Ryo witnessed Agito crouching next to the body of Aki, one of his girlfriends that met with an unfortunate end. He drew the incorrect conclusion that Agito had killed her, and before he could really think about it or ask what was going on, he’d transformed into Gills and attacked Agito. Agito managed to get away, and Gills continued to attack him every chance he got. But when Ryo learned that Shouichi Tsugami was actually Agito, he immediately realized his mistake—there was no way Shouichi of all people would have killed Aki. From that point, he and Shouichi became allies. Ryo knows he makes mistakes and Gills makes him prone to attacking when he probably shouldn’t. He’s willing to work with those mistakes and reassess his opinion of a potential enemy when the situation calls for it.

Abilities/Special Powers/Non average skills:
Ryo’s strongest ability is his ability to transform into Kamen Rider Gills. This makes him stronger and faster than a normal human, and he is capable of fighting monsters on his own without any additional equipment. Gills has claws on his wrists and his heels, which can grow and extend during battle to become built-in weapons. In addition to this, his wrist claws can become whip-like jointed tentacles, which he can use to ensnare and trap his enemies.

Gills also has the ability to transform into his Exceed form, which powers up his normal abilities, giving him more spikes and tentacles to work with as well as increasing his overall speed and strength. Transforming to Exceed Gills can also serve a regenerative purpose; Gills has been in a fight in which one of his arms was torn off. He regenerated the limb almost instantaneously upon transforming to Exceed. In the final battle against the Overlord of Darkness, it looked like Ryo was dead—but he got better. There is a strong implication that he can no longer be killed, although there is no concrete canon evidence backing this up.

In addition to being able to transform into Gills, Ryo on his own is an excellent hand-to-hand combatant. He’s more of a brawler than a guy with any sort of special training. He is also a highly trained swimmer, and he competed regularly in high-level swim meets before he began having issues transforming into Gills.

The one special item Ryo might conceivably call his own is his motorcycle, which, when he transforms into Gills, becomes the Gills Raider. Basically, the Gills Raider is just a motorcycle that thematically matches Gills and may be used to ram particularly stubborn monsters. (And I understand if the cycle can’t be brought in because…it’s a motorcycle. Not exactly fantasy-like…and getting gas would be hard.)

[Game Specific]

Character class: I’d actually like to set Ryo up as a Berserker class, if at all possible. (For reference, I asked here.) As a Berserker, I’d imagine he would start out with a set of light leather armor and a battleaxe. Berserkers are glass cannons, designed to work themselves into a battle frenzy and dish out large amounts of damage as quickly as possible, because they generally don’t take hits well.

Why your character would be that class: As Gills, Ryo is the very definition of a Berserker. He turns feral, fights wild, and he doesn’t always distinguish well between enemies and allies, particularly if an ally gets in his way. He is more likely to go after targets that have previously harmed him in some way, and he may blindly transform and rush into battle without thinking even at the sight of a previous foe. Even when the battle’s over and he’s been called off, he may lash out a final time at his enemy. He tries to dish out his damage as quickly as possible, and he’s not the most defensively-oriented Rider. Ryo has been severely injured more than any of the other Riders in his canon.

Powers/skills to be gained by being that class: Once he transforms, he’s already quite good at working himself into a battle frenzy and then charging off like a crazy wild man with spikes attached to his extremities. He might, however, learn to use a few new sorts of weapons were he to attempt fighting as himself without changing into Gills.

[Samples]

Log sample: Ryo never expected to find himself in a situation like this. He’s had the basics of it all explained to him, but the whole scenario still feels a little odd. And annoying. He never asked for this, and he’s done so much fighting as things stand already. He can’t help but kick himself for picking up that strange blue book as he wanders around town, trying to get his bearings and get a good look at things.

He’s clad in a light set of leather armor, and he has a battleaxe strapped to his back. The effect’s enough to ensure him an ample berth should he head into a crowd, which is good. The mood he’s in, anyone that annoys him is likely to meet up with one of Ryo’s fists to the face. Some of the townspeople are staring at him, he feels, trying to get a sense of the new arrival to the town. A Berserker, they call him. It’s annoying enough being here, and being called that, well…he supposed he couldn’t get too worked up over that, even if being called out on it so readily made him uneasy. Fighting as Gills had that effect…

Ryo found himself getting a bit hungry, and he decided to see what he could find in the way of food in this place. As much as he hates to admit it to himself, he might be there a while. It’s not like he’d bothered to tell anyone where he was going after they all defeated the Overlord of Darkness, and no one back home would likely even know he was missing. The thought was troubling, but Ryo pushed it aside. Survival first. Food first. Worry about the rest later.

Lost in thought as he was, it wasn’t hard for Ryo to bump into some unsuspecting civilian minding his own business. Or perhaps the civilian had bumped into Ryo. Either way, Ryo wasn’t really happy with that. “Watch it.” The words came out in almost a snarl, causing the man who’d bumped into him (or been bumped into) to stammer out an apology and get out of there as quickly as he could.

“Tch.” Ryo watched the man go, shook his head, and continued on in his quest to find something to eat.

Orb sample:
[The video feed opens with a stern-faced man in leather armor holding up a battle axe.]

Right. So, I figure they gave me one of these…I need to know how to use it.

[He’s swinging it experimentally as he talks. He’s still not smiling. Asking for help like this…well, it’s a good idea, but he hates having to do it. Still, he figures there’s not much more to using the axe than just running around and hitting things.]

Is anyone out there well-acquainted with axes? I can trade a bit of combat training of my own, if it comes to that.