Hm? Ah...Yukito Takeuchi. Super High School Level Equestrian. Nice to meet you. I don't suppose you're familiar with my field of work, but...dressage, vaulting, endurance riding, show jumping, eventing, I can do it all. In other words, I compete in just about any sport that involves horses. I think that should explain it...
...could you please not stand so close?
((DR RP blog associated with Trials of Desperation. Main is shsl-psychopomp. Please do not be alarmed by the friendly spirit guide behind the horseback rider.))
HEY EVERYONE TELL ME ABOUT YOUR CHARACTERS IN A FIRE EMBLEM AU!!!
yuuma would be a peg knight obviously but she would be the only one that actually uses staves. bless you yuuma. she sometimes falls asleep on her pegasus.
aki would be a grumpy mercenary -> hero who decides fuck it and helps the cause.
keiko would be an assassin! sun-mi would be a wyvern rider -> griffon rider…cecile would be a myrmidon -> swordmaster
(we're endgame now so I hope this is...alright...)
Yukito would probably be a prince from some backwater country nobody cares about! Naturally he'd be one of the mounted classes-- probably a Nomad/whatever you want to call the class that rides horses and shoots bows, mostly because he's too squeamish for frontline combat (thanks Yukito.)
I think it'd take his country getting invaded for him to actually do shit so he probably joins up with the protagonist's forces in order to do that.
What the Fuck is Up with Yukito Takeuchi: the Post
Alright, I promised that if he endgamed I'd write a massive psychological essay on Yukito and his Big Singular Backstory Spoiler and how that affected his character growth. This particular thing forms the entire basis for his character, to be completely honest-- in fact it was one of the very first things I decided about him. His entire character was made on a dare of sorts.
Someone told me that it was impossible to write an otherkin character and have them be taken seriously. I decided to take up that offer.
Instead, let's talk about how his brain works. When I was trying to settle on a personality for him, I realized I'd have to figure out how to write a horse in a human body that'd picked up on some human habits and social customs. Meaning I'd need to work through how a horse thinks. After doing a lot of research I will give my non-professional opinion on the matter: horses are afraid of fucking everything. EVERYTHING. You see, a horse's first and nearly only defense is to run. They're extremely fragile creatures (just about any injury is a death sentence, especially if it's to their legs) and they're not built to fight back at all. They can do quite a lot of damage if they do opt to engage someone, if a horse kicks a human in the head, they'll probably suffer brain damage if they don't outright die, but that is an absolute last resort. Ergo, 'stand and fight' is not an option when they are confronted. Their first reaction to anything unfamiliar is to panic and run.
Thus, Yukito's world is permeated by a haze of nearly-constant fear of everything around him, which can be negated if he has the safety of a familiar group. Horses, after all, are herd animals, and their second line of defense is being in a group. He strongly prefers the company of horses to humans simply because he has a better innate understanding of their behavior. They're safer and easier to deal with for him. Humans, by comparison, are pretty inexplicable. Social conventions are actually quite complex and difficult to learn, especially if you started out five years behind everyone else around you and you already have a nervous, perfectionist disposition. So, generally speaking, he didn't bother trying to integrate with his peers.
Competing only changed some of that. It did make him a bit more confident, but the biggest thing it did for him was teaching him how to swallow his fear long enough to put up a convincingly calm 'stage persona' of sorts. Dressage in particular emphasizes the aptitude of the rider, and seeming serene and in tune with your environment is a big part of that. He still avoided dealing with other riders (he prefers the company of horses, again) so he kind of accrued a bad reputation in the showing world as a snobby rich foreign kid. I like to imagine he got some kind of backhanded nickname along the lines of "The Ice Prince" (it's funny because you spell his name with the kanji for snow) (also Olympic dressage rider Isabell Werth was known as the Ice Princess in her younger years.)
Incidentally, the fact he thinks like a horse does is one of the reasons he's an outstanding competitor-- he works extremely well with horses of all kinds, and the level of unity between him and Pelleas (the horse he uses for most of his events) is unmatched. And while knowing the horse you're working with is basically a requirement for any sport involving horses, it's particularly important in dressage and eventing (which includes a dressage phase,) the two that he's the most known for. Pelleas being a fast learner helped but as bad as he is at teaching humans, Yukito is very, very good at teaching horses how to do the things they need to do. He's extremely gentle, patient, good at creating a safe and stable environment (because he knows exactly what will scare a horse,) and can intuitively 'get' a horse's personality and how to work with them the same way a people person can 'get' a human. Because of that, Pelleas was able to start in a bunch of events young and they had a lot of time to gain experience (they both started the moment they could age in to any given discipline, more or less.)
Anyway, long story short, Yukito never had any human friends and his parents were always deeply concerned about that but had no idea what to do because they're really loving, doting people but...not exactly the best parents in the world and never gave him a whole lot of direction. He'd be a huge mess if he hadn't grown up being around horses and being heavily involved in equestrian sports. Hope's Peak was supposed to be his big second chance, to start over in a place where nobody knew his reputation and make some human friends! He wanted to make his parents proud and he knew they were pushing for it (they'd asked him to do it and they almost never ask him to do anything) so he accepted without any second thoughts.
I think we all know how that turned out. Predespair Yukito probably made some friends (he probably ran in about the same circles he did ingame, plus Moko since the only reason they never got along ingame is that everything that could have gone wrong with their relationship went wrong) and had a massive unrequited crush on Kaede and Nana but never confessed to either of them.
Look, it took a bunch of people dying and mental breakdowns on both sides for him to say absolutely anything to Kaede, what do you expect? With Kaede in particular it was one of those things where everyone knew it, up to and including them, but neither of them could say anything to the other.
(I should probably do an essay sometime about why his three closest friends/The Six Hope Shards Crew were all Very Important People to him, but that's another textwall for another time. I can briefly bring up Kaede though-- Kaede was Very Important because of how stoic she was. Yukito really, really admired that and when she helped him in the first trial he sort of went <3 and had confusing kind of romantic feelings for her that he finally acknowledged after their secret exchange, but opted to not admit out of fear that she would reject him for being 'crazy.')
(RIGHT speaking of that I should also talk about how his parents reacted to the otherkin thing really quick-- long story short, Yukito sees his secret as being deeply shameful due to the way they treated it when he brought it up with him. He'd said he was a horse for years and years, and when he was like five they saw it as a cute little kid thing. When he was thirteen and advancing through the competitive ranks and already starting to have a bad reputation, it wasn't so cute anymore. They basically told him 'You know we love you, but that whole "I'm a horse" thing? Don't tell that to anyone else ever again.' And again, Yukito will do anything for his parents, so he shut up about it forever until Kaede happened.)
The mutual killing fucked him up pretty badly because he was reasonably sure he'd be targeted early on. You can see how strong his flight response is in a couple of his earlier threads (sorry I'll dig up links later, just take my word on this one.) He tried to mostly avoid being seen in trials even when he was trying to help (and he wanted to help, if only to avoid dying, though being better liked/seen as useful was a nice bonus.) And then the second trial happened.
Yukito figured out Nana was probably being framed very early on, as in not long after taking a look at the hairs (because if you moved a body to cover up where you killed someone, why would you leave a piece of evidence as obvious as that lying around?) He panicked almost right away and figured as Nana's Partner in Justice/friend he had to defend her because it was very possible nobody else would.
Well, he kind of succeeded! He at least got Nana off the chopping block. For the record, what he was going to say in the trial to try and convince people to not take his place was "I'm not even human." So he almost dropped his secret there, but stopped just short of saying it.
SPEAKING OF WHICH. A lot of people were apparently confused by the nature of Goro's "execution" in chapter two. It'd probably clear things up a lot to say that was intended for Yukito (which is why it was written by me.) The execution (which evanescent-espirit helped me come up with) was supposed to exploit the fact that he a.) sees himself as a prey animal, b.) acts like one, and c.) losing his legs is literally the worst thing that could happen to him. Not just because it'd make riding almost impossible without a highly specialized saddle, but it'd mean that his primary and most reliable defense against any attempts on his life would be unusable. A horse that can't run is a dead horse.
(Also I can't believe only one person outright guessed his secret after Hajiro's trial-- his and Kaede's response titles were meant to be read back to back. "But We're Only Human." "Well, Not All of Us.")
Back to the second trial, the reason why Yukito hated Moko for so long and why he hated her more than Kimi, who actually did most of the work for the framing attempt, is mostly because Moko and Nana had actually...kind of gotten along and could be considered acquaintances. Betraying your friend/friend-ish person is like The Worst Thing You Can Do Ever to him because herd mentality, more or less (also because he has so few friends himself he wouldn't want to do anything to lose them.) The fact that they were just trying to find a way to force a tie in the votes didn't matter to him, because wasn't it true that most people were fine with the idea of saving someone's life, especially since they were all reasonably sure it was an accident at that point. So why couldn't she have been honest and admitted it? As far as he was concerned what she (and by extension Hasumi and Kimi) did could have got Nana killed if Yukito hadn't worked so hard to make sure he could prove Nana was innocent.
They almost made up when Moko let him into Nana's room after her death but then Moko decided she didn't want to hold a mastermind vote after Nana's trial and ooooooooh boy did that ever make him livid. Nana had one request for her and she couldn't do it. They both read the suicide note together, they both knew she'd died for it, and Yukito had come in (with the wrong suspect in mind...) fully intending to have a mastermind vote and leave. And Moko backing out in his eyes let the other two (whom he was reasonably sure were Chouko and Mona) also back out their votes, which as far as he knew led to them not getting to have the mastermind vote. So Nana died for nothing. I said in his app he's not actually as virtuous as people might think-- it's more like his singular virtue is absolute loyalty. His values will usually reflect the values of those around him-- previously it was those of his parents, Nana kind of took the place of being his moral compass in the mutual killing scenario, and then once she died you could see him mirroring Kaede the most strongly. That's also why Nana's death fucked him up so much and you see him actually raise his voice for the first time ever in that trial. He was keeping it together because that's what Nana would have wanted, and because if he tried to do his usual thing and keep it civil people would be more likely to try and hold the mastermind vote. And when that didn't happen...well...he sort of lost all faith in humanity at that point. They were all gonna die because even when someone who was gentle and good and pure died to give them a chance to get out, they wouldn't take it.
(Also he was almost positive at that point Mona had been the one to screw up the suicide, and since Moko revealed by talking in English-- which he speaks fluently-- that she'd had a conversation with Mona at some point in time, he thought she was covering for someone. Again. Which gave him twice the reason to hate her.)
So what does the future hold for Yukito? Well...it's not looking good for a while unless endgame makes it better/worse. He's gone from being mildly afraid of humans to what could be a full-blown case of anthropophobia, and he definitely has PTSD at this point if the screaming nightmares about finding his friends dead/dying himself weren't enough of an indication. It's going to take him years to recover, and he probably won't be able to compete in anything other than endurance riding just because he won't be able to handle crowds. I think Nyneve should be aged in by the time he gets out, so theoretically he'd be able to compete at a much higher level but it comes down to a question of whether or not he'd want to ride with her, he might just want to spend time with Pelleas instead because Pelleas is practically his brother at this point since they grew up together.
Given a few years and a looooooooot of therapy, he'd probably decide to start doing hippotherapy for PTSD victims like himself. It'd be his way of contributing something positive to the world and making up for the fact he's technically implicit in the deaths of a lot of people.
And that's about everything I wanted to cover! If you actually stuck around for this whole essay you're a trooper and I salute you. o7 If this fails to answer any questions, please send me some! I love talking OCs and whatnot. I might do an addendum later if there's enough interest.
Gott Weiß Ich Will Kein Engel Sein (Yukito, RE: Chouko, Seki, Kaede, Moko)
His mind was reeling. Nothing Chouko said made sense. He’d known for years he couldn’t handle this kind of…situation. Even without the whole ‘mutual killing’ thing, the idea of being trapped in a place like this forever, never to return home, never to feel the wind in his hair or the sun on his face, was about as close as to hell as he could possibly imagine. What could have possibly convinced him this was a good idea? Nothing. He would never lock himself in willingly. She had to be lying. This couldn’t be true…
But the trial was over. Chouko had been voted guilty. Only one person had to die today. That was…that had to be for the best, right? They were going to vote her as mastermind anyways, so she’d probably die, right…? Only one more person had to die before this was all finally over. And nothing mattered more than getting out.
And just as the trial ended, Moko spoke up. A few weeks, maybe even days ago, he’d have gotten angry or sad or felt something. But not now and not here and right now it felt like he’d never feel quite right about anything ever again. If he had to try and put a finger on what emotion came to pass at her confession, it might have been something along the lines of a muted disappointment. But not surprise. It wasn’t as if she had shown herself to be all that bright in the past in his eyes, so her doing something like this was on some level expected.
But given long enough here, they all would have turned into murderers anyway, wouldn’t they? Most of them already were, in a sense. He’d voted people to their deaths several times already. What was the difference between him and the people who had actually killed someone with their own hands? Nothing, really. Nobody was innocent here. If they thought they were, they were lying to themself.
It was only when Kaede broke down that he started paying attention. What was he supposed to say? Sending Chouko to her death in lieu of the actual culprit was his idea in the first place. So he chose to say nothing, and instead simply walked over to Chouko’s podium and hugged the both of them.
And then Seki had to speak up. He closed his eyes, knowing he had to respond but not particularly wanting to speak with the other boy. There was so much he could say but so little energy to do it with.
"It’s her. Honestly she has been on my suspect list for a while now. And to be honest her lack of understanding regarding death makes her more suspicious. If someone had a full comprehension of what this game entailed, they might have admitted to causing it a long time ago just out of a guilty conscience. While I do think she was being manipulated, and she may have been selected for this job specifically due to that trait, we have no idea whether or not the headmaster is even here, much less whether he’s alive or dead. Yes, I think he’s the worst person in this situation. But all we can do is follow the rules we were given at this point."
They’d come this far already, after all. Now there was no going back.
"So let me put it this way. She is already going to die. If you try to back out on the vote, a second person may die as well. Or you can vote for the person the evidence we gathered points to, and only one person will be killed regardless of whether or not we walk out of here, though given we practically have a full confession I think we will be."
This wasn’t right. She seemed genuinely remorseful, but why? She’d probably been almost directly involved in the deaths of fourteen people, did she not understand what was going on? For that matter, there were still some theories he’d brought up with Nana that hadn’t been addressed yet…
"…Have you had contact with someone outside of the school? Or had contact in the past. I’m starting to wonder if there’s a third party involved in all of this. Furthermore, do you remember the year before this started? I just…I want to know what happened. We all do."
Everything she was saying just seemed to raise more questions. He’d been so sure going in that they’d corner the mastermind and then get the answers and then leave, but as usual reality was so much less simple.
People were so upset. Understandably so, but he didn’t want this to devolve into an incident like the first trial where it turned into a complete free-for-all. Should he try to press the issue to try and make sense of this all? Would it even help? Would anything help anymore, after the gravity of what he’d just revealed? Especially since Chouko seemed to be having a mental breakdown. He wasn’t sure if he’d be getting any answers out of her anymore, but it wouldn’t hurt to try, maybe…
"…Kimura-san. Nana told me that you spent a lot of time in the woodshop. Were you…making those dolls, all this time? They had to be yours, the detail was…to be honest it was like looking at a copy of myself. Just…"
He was starting to cry too now. He wasn’t even sure why anymore. But…if they were right, this would be over soon, wouldn’t it? That was all he could think about— not being in this school anymore.
"T-they’re dead. Fourteen people are dead, and they’re never coming back, why did you do this—”
He shook his head, wiping away tears.
"You…if you did this, you stole the student files, right? Why did you do that? What was the point of this? Y-you know we considered you a friend, right? Kaede, Akiko-san…they trusted you. And…and I wasn’t going to vote for you last trial because I trusted you. Just…tell me you had a reason. Say something!”
He’d managed to stay calm until that last sentence. Then, his voice broke, and he found himself shaking at the intensity of his own words.
"S-sorry…I’m sorry…I just want to make sense of this. Nothing makes sense anymore…"
And now he was back to shaking and crying. Wordlessly, he left his own podium to stand near Kaede. But he couldn’t bring himself to do anything else.
It Could...Only Have Been You? Maybe? (RE: Seki, ATTN: Chouko)
He was afraid of this. How was he supposed to answer Morita’s question without sounding suspicious?
"I…I can’t. It. Um. Exploded."
Apparently he couldn’t.
"Kimi-san, Seki-san, and Moko-san can back me up on this. But. We found a room. That room had…dolls. Or rather, marionettes. Twenty-five of them. Of all of us. Except for one."
He paused, lifting his head. His gaze fell onto one student in particular.
"Kimura-san. Would you care to explain? Especially why you apparently rigged those dolls to explode when they were found.”
Okay. Well…that could have gone better. A lot better. In so many ways. But there was nothing they could do about it now. And that one thing he had found was…it would end the game. Here and now.
Time to live up to the promises he made. He gave Kaede one last sympathetic look and squeezed her hand before departing to his own podium. He stared at the ground before speaking up.
"…Well. There’s not much evidence to go through. Sand was dumped on the floor of the psychology classroom, I’m not sure why. Some food was missing. I found the meat in the pool, God only knows why it was there. I don’t think any of us ever found the murder weapon or Mina-san’s wheelchair, but we should all know the site of the murder was most likely the wood shop, given the blood spatters there. And there was a hole in the walls for reasons I was unable to ascertain."
He paused, crossings his arms and tapping his fingers on this sleeves.
"…I want to remind everyone to, again, call for a mastermind vote. We have even more evidence this time. Kimi-san, Moko-san, Seki-san and I…we found something in one of the hidden floors. I think that it should leave no question as to who the mastermind is. On that matter, I…I have a suggestion to make."
He took in a few breaths, closing his eyes. He could only hope this would go over well.
"I…I think we should try to vote for the mastermind as the culprit of this case. Especially given the lack of evidence. I…I’m tired of trials. I’m tired of executions. I don’t want to kill people anymore. I just want to go home."
That was probably too much of an appeal to emotions. He needed to throw some logic in there. When was the last time feelings had gotten them anywhere in here?
"Look, there’s…there’s nothing in the rules that says we can’t do that, right? And…technically, they’re responsible for all this. If they hadn’t started this, nobody would have ever killed. So…shouldn’t we execute the person who’s responsible for the deaths of nearly half of us, rather than someone who killed one person to save us all from dying? That’s…that’s all, I guess."
Yukito staggered into the computer room, pale as a sheet, sweat plastering his clothes and hair to his skin. The boy looked as though he’d seen a ghost. And for a few moments, he barely seemed to understand what he was looking at as he stood over Goro’s corpse.
And then reality sunk in. This was the man who had quite possibly saved his life. They’d not spoken much, but he’d seemed like a good person. He’d tried to get everyone to vote for themselves to keep Iwahara from being killed so long ago. He’d offered to watch over her, and Yukito had been willing to go along with that plan. But not enough people had. And everything had gone downhill from there.
He couldn’t even pretend to be surprised. If anything, the only sense of shock he could muster up was that nobody had targeted one of the injured students sooner. Humans were predators. And they were easy kills. At least this motive made sense to him. Not like the secrets one, or the question one.
That wasn’t going to change what had just happened, though. But Yukito knew exactly what to do. First, he needed to find Kaede…
Seki was in his room feeling a lot grumpier than usual. He hadn’t eaten in what, 2 days? Playing in the arcade with Moko helped relieve the stress a bit, but… not by a lot. He was starving.
Of course, Seki wasn’t surprised that a body announcement was made. Not at all. He was incredibly tempted to go get food himself, but he forced himself to wait just a little bit more. After all, he had to make sure Moko was safe.
He left his dorm room and he was instantly relieved. So, Moko was doing well! He accepted her gift of french toast graciously, and went up the elevator to the 7th floor. He nibbled on the toast as he went up. He figured he should check the most interesting place first for the body, which was obviously the arcade.
He could only hope that Kimi-sama (or someone who wasn’t one of the four) wasn’t the one to perish.
Once he made his way to the arcade he noticed that very familiar blonde hair and short body.
If by “feeling left out,” you mean “spacing right the fuck out,” then yes, she totally seemed so. As Eve and Yukito went on with the music things, Kaede… more or less zoned out entirely. Her knowledge of music was pretty limited, and her tastes weren’t the classical-y stuff Eve was into.
She snaps back to Earth after Yukito had said her name.
"…Huh?
Oh, uh, sometimes, I guess. Sometimes, when I’m, uh, out jogging in the mornings or something? Usually just then, though, it ain’t easy to parkour with an MP3 player chord dangling between your head and your pocket. Trust me, I’ve tried.”
Her smile brightened significantly as Yukito made it apparent that he knew Vivaldi. It was so simple, but her face absolutely lit up at it.
"Y-yeah…! Vivaldi composed Four Seasons…and…I always enjoy playing the Winter Section of it…”
She gave a nod, continuing on toward the Lecture Hall. It was in sight now. Awesome. Though so many compliments became a cause for a bit of shyness as well.
"O-oh, thank you. I…had a lot of time to practice, so I was able to pick up a lot of those skills and instruments. I’m only really good at clarinet, violin, and flute…b-but I have basic knowledge of a lot more. Hehe….Ode to Joy is one of the first songs I learned on the violin…that’s really c-cool."
She turned to Kaede and Yukito again, not wanting the conversation to be just on music. That didn’t seem fair to Kaede at all, even though music was one of the only things she knew how to talk about.
"I don’t….know much about either of your talents, really…would you mind explaining what you do…? It all seems so difficult….y-you both must be really strong to do such athletic things…"
Wow, that was...probably the happiest he'd ever seen her. It looked so genuine, he couldn't help but smile too.
"Still, that's four instruments. Three more than I ever learned...I mean, if what little I know of the piano even counts."
His face brightened when she asked about his own field. Now this was something he could talk about for hours. Not that anyone would want him to. You really don't want him to, actually.
"It's challenging, but I love it. Most people don't think of horseback riding as being difficult, but once you get into the competitive aspects it's extremely difficult. I started out in dressage...in some respects that's one of the less physically intensive disciplines, and it's still incredibly difficult. A rider in dressage has to appear perfectly still...that's very difficult to do on the back of a moving horse, especially since you do have to move in time with the horse's gait to keep from injuring yourself. It takes an incredible sense of balance, and perfect control over your body...that's not even getting into things like endurance riding. The shortest distance for an endurance ride is fifty kilometers. So that's several hours of nonstop motion, and you have to pace both yourself and your horse..."
He trailed off, then laughed nervously.
"Er, sorry. I could talk about that for a while but I'm sure nobody cares. It's a significantly more complex activity than people think."
