Minato Kageaki

Minato Kageaki is the protagonist of the visual novel Fullmetal Daemon: Muramasa. (SPOILERS FOR THE GAME START HERE) Minato Kageaki is most of the time serious, yet that can lead to him being so serious that he acts aloof and is socially unaware. He is very polite, even when talking to his enemies to find a way to solve the situation without violence. Except when it comes to killing, he is almost always very calm and levelheaded. Kageaki views himself as a demon undeserving of any pity or redemption for the atrocities he has committed and will continue to commit, and he believes "there are no heroes". However, he will continue to do whatever it takes to stop Ginseigo, although he won't kill unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. Ginseigo has an ability to put an "egg" inside of a tsurugi, and when this "egg" hatches, it will overtake the tsurugi and actually become another copy of Ginseigo, meaning the level of destruction and massacres that are caused by just one Ginseigo will double. This means he is forced to kill occasionally no matter what, which then of course leads to the law of balance requiring another sacrifice. Kageaki lives with a curse; for every person he kills which he deems evil, he is required to sacrifice another person whom he deems good, under the Law of Balance. While he's usually a good natured and righteous person, on occasions he is required to kill innocent people to maintain the law of balance. The very first "good" person he killed was actually his own mother, at the time not understanding the consequences of the Law of Balance. He pilots the cursed tsurugi Muramasa (which is what enforces the Law of Balance) in hopes to defeat the silver star Ginseigo. Ginseigo is actually piloted by his sister Hikaru Minato, who was corrupted by the cursed tsurugi Ginseigo. It led her to become a near godly being who murders indiscriminately. Kageaki believes that this was his fault, and so seeks to kill her and Ginseigo to stop what he has caused. Furthermore, Kageaki believes he deserves death, and that his actions make him a demon, because murder is murder, no matter the circumstances. While he believes he deserves death, he can't let himself "have that release" until Ginseigo is stopped. For Kageaki's powers, he does a chant to summon his tsurugi Muramasa, its stats are stronger than most tsurugi. He has a special technique known as "Magatsu Railgun", letting him fire off an extremely swift projectile from his sword like a railgun would. He also has access to "Enchant: Ending" which boosts his own speed through the powers of electromagnetic acceleration (I think). He also has Enchant Plus: An ability which generates multilayered electromagnetic fields through Muramasa's armor, using the alternating forces of attraction and repulsion to enhance performance. An increase in speed is one of the benefits. Finally, he also has Enchant Minus: An ability which manipulates magnetic fields to defend against enemy attacks. Basically, anything Kageaki touches with the magnetic field is repelled through repulsion powers. To give some background about the setting, Minato Kageaki lives in a dystopian Japan (known here as Yamato), where the nation is ruled by the tyrannical Rokuhara Shogunate, lead by 4 generals (named Yusa Dosshin, Chachamaru Ashikage, Shishuku Ohtori, and Raicho Imagawa) and a shogun who don't care much for their people, and where acts of tyranny by Rokuhara are common. At the same time however, a group known as GHQ (an extension of the Britannia Empire, where the two big empires in the world currently are the Britannian Empire and the Russian Empire) is also vying for power to control Yamato through indirectly influencing the civilian population to believe that GHQ's control over Yamato would be better than Rokuhara's, such that the people would view it justified when GHQ declares war on Rokuhara. Minato Kageaki works for "The Prince" (who works somewhat against the Rokuhara Shogunate) alongside his adoptive father Akitaka Kikuchi, who is chief of the Kamakura Police Department. Also, battles take place in machines called "tsurugi" which are basically robot mecha that are piloted from the inside cockpit by people calledv "musha". They are much smaller than your average mecha though and a bit more humanoid, being like 3 times the size of an average person. Basically like a really huge suit of armor. Sentient tsurugis refer to their pilots as "Mido". For Kageaki's backstory, he used to be a salaryman, living a comfortable and uneventful live with his mother Minato Subaru and his sister. Then his sister drank contaminated water, and she was bedridden. To save her life, she needed a foreign doctor's treatment, which would only be approved if he could drive out local bandits, led by a woman named Mizuhi Ichigao. His mother had always taught him to have a pacifist mindset and to never kill, ever. He engaged in a duel with Miuzhi, and both won and spared her life. This led to him gaining her respect, and him convincing her to give up being a bandit. They then were able to treat Hikaru and save her life. However as Mizuhi was trying to convince the rest of the bandits to give up, her brother took over, killed Mizuhi and aattacked Kageaki's village. At this time Hikaru forms a contract with Ginseigo, causing her to go mad and kill all the bandits and townspeople too. Mizuhi's brother then goes mad and attempts to kill both Subaru and Kageaki. Seeing Subaru's life's in danger, Kageaki in desparation makes a contract with Muramasa (though he doesn't know what exactly the curse is yet). He kills Kazuma, but under the law of balance, he's then forced to kill Subaru too. After seeing the carnage on the village he lives in, he vows to stop Ginseigo once and for all. Sorimachi Ichizo is a recurring enemy of Kageaki (who works for GHQ, and is also a low-life yakuza who's an old-timer), only hating those who aren't doing what they want to in life. That means he holds a special hatred for Kageaki, because of course Kageaki doesn't want to kill innocent people or even pursue Ginseigo, yet he forces himself to. Ayane Ichijo is a girl obsessed with righteousness, believing evil people deserve death and that one should stand up against tyranny. Kageaki thinks her ideals noble and sympathizes with her, but she can't say what she's doing is "right", and thus justice, because he can't ever think of killing as ever "just", so what Ichijo is doing is not "justice". Kageaki even realizes the true purpose of the Law of Balance; any person you kill believes that their cause was right, that their cause was worth body and soul. Hence, even when you kill someone you deem evil, you kill the beliefs they thought were good. Thus, both good and evil die when you kill someone. The law... of balance. Kageaki has a quote like "there is only one thing that separates good from evil; that is the ability to reject the value of another's life." Kanae Otori is from the GHQ, a woman who fights for the common people and who Kageaki allies with. The tsurugi he pilots is technically sentient, and he also calls the sentient tsurugi "Muramasa", and this sentient being is the soul of a person who was sacrificed to make the tsurugi. Him and Muramasa don't get along too well, as Kageaki places all the blame of the murders on himself, believing Muramasa is just a tool. He summons Muramasa with the chant "Where there are demons, I slay them. Where there are saints, I slay them. Mine is the way of the sword". He announces his railgun technique by saying "Yoshino-onryu Kassen Reiho, adapted from Jinrai— Railgun: Magatsu!" One final thing, but as a tsurugi uses their special move (so in Kageaki's case his Railgun or any of his Enchant spells), they'll end up using their body's calories as fuel. If they overuse their power, they'll experience "grayout", where their heat reserves are dangerously low. Cold will overtake their body as their vision grows gray, and they'll slowly lose motor control and die if they continue pushing themselves. In particular Kageaki's Railgun uses a lot of energy. Note that after Kageaki will not hesitate to take an innocent life under the law of balance, even though he despises every second of it. Also, when he defeats Hikaru he plans to die, but killing himself would be too easy; he wants someone to kill him in the most miserable and humiliating way possible, believing that the only way to make up for what he's done is to suffer an agonizing death in the same way (and perhaps even worse). Battles between musha, those wielding tsurugi, are either in the ground or air. Ground-based duels rely primarily on swordsmanship skills, similar to a regular duel, though the tsurugi's abilities may be used as strategic powerups. However, tsurugi battles primarily take to the air. At first both tsurugis aim for an altitude advantage over the other. Once it's decided who's on top, the once below will fly up to meet the one above, and the one above flies down to meet the one below. Obviously the one at a higher altitude has the advantage, as their strike has a greater force thanks to gravity while the one at a lower altitude has to meet the upward tsurugi while working against gravity. After the brief clash, the tsurugi initially higher continues their flight down to gain speed, so that by increasing their speed again they can rise to the greater altitude. Meanwhile, the tsurugi that was initially lower will climb altitude for a brief bit before "stalling" by running out of speed. They will then be forced to dive to increase their speed so that they can rise to a greater altitude, but they're still at a disadvantage as they started their dive much later than the other tsurugi. Also, Kageaki will never tell anyone about the Law of Balance; especially if they're trying to kill him out of righteousness. Because the last thing he needs is sympathy, for someone to claim that he did nothing wrong when he knows what he's done. Kageaki also believes in the idea that even against impossible odds, if you must fight, then fight. Worry about the chances after you have decided to take up your fight. Also when Kageaki kills someone he deems good under the law of balance, he prefers to do so before they even know what's happening. He doesn't tell them why he needs to kill them, as he believes that would be selfish, serving only to absolve himself of the blame which falls entirely on him.