Hikaru

[Hikaru]

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[Hikaru]

Elindra Mark (Favored)

It was always an oddity when Hikaru was seen out and about. Having always been focused on his crafts and plotting his revenge, he really did not often find the time to attend festivals. But here he was, on a miraculous day with a pocket full of jewelry that he had made himself. He had intended to deliver it to his boss to sell, but the shop was closed for the big day. There were drunks roaming about, flower petals soaring through the air, and music being sung throughout the town.

Hikaru was making his way from hotspot to hotspot taking in the smells and sights that he rarely got to experience. He would eventually get dragged into a game or two to make an odd team even. During the game some jewels fell out of the young man’s pocket and drew laughter from the crowd. Someone called out that if he was so fancy he might as well join a beauty contest at sunset. It was, of course, a joke but Hikaru took it in stride and said he would do just that. He figured if worst came to worst he could at least find a woman for the night.

Fast forward to the beauty contest, after Hikaru had gotten enough to drink to make this seem like the right thing to do. The contestants were entirely female, several dozen in total save Hikaru. Some were regular contenders, many were first timers, and one pair had declared that they were twins. Unbeknownst to all, Edasha the immortal had also joined the contest. Edasha caught many people's eye, especially Hikaru. He knew from the start that there was no way he could win against someone with those looks but he was going to try anyways. And so the contest began. Hikaru donned his jewels and did his best to look presentable and somehow made it through the first round of judging. The women in the crowd cheered for him and it was clear that the men in the audience were getting a little jealous. Hikaru had never been in this kind of situation before, the kind where people looked at him with envy. He liked it and committed to chasing that feeling.

Hikaru wasn’t sure exactly why some of the men sported jealous looks as he had entered purely for the fun of it. Either way it felt good to be admired. And so the rounds of judging continued and Hikaru was eventually eliminated. But that wasn’t the end of it. Hikaru sought out the twins who were up next to compete against each other. He asked the both, separately, why they wanted to win. The first stated that she wanted to have fun while the other said that she wanted to make her more successful sister jealous. The latter also admitted that she wanted to make her husband remember how beautiful she was since he had been talking to other women. For the fun of it Hikaru winked at the latter and let her borrow the jewelry. He told the twin that if she won then perhaps she could show her husband what it was like to talk to another man.

Of course, the jeweled twin won the contest hands down and was happy to have won. The twin gave Hikaru a kiss on the cheek and a wink as she went onto the final round where she was paired up against Edasha herself. Nobody in the crowd recognized the immortal by her looks, but by now Hikaru was very skeptical. Such a beautiful lady at a small scale beauty contest was suspicious to say the least. She barely spoke or revealed anything about herself, as if her beauty did all the talking that was necessary. It was at that moment when the judges announced the winner that Hikaru was almost certain that the most beautiful lady he had ever seen had to be Edasha.

Hikaru moved to approach the immortal but he was quickly pulled away by the bejeweled twin who's husband was calling out for her. Hikaru looked back to the immortal but she was gone. And so Hikaru and the runner up went back to his home. Hikaru opened the door to let the adulterous wife inside and almost followed her. He stopped short, however, because he saw someone walking towards him. Within a couple seconds it was the immortal. Hikaru was dumbfounded. What did this beautiful woman want with him? He was even more shocked when she confirmed herself to be the immortal Edasha. She explained that it wasn’t often she saw a man do what he had done. Not only had he entered a beauty contest meant for women but he had helped a woman indulge in her desire to become more beautiful. What was more was his profession revolved around beautiful jewels and had convinced a woman to commit adultery. The immortal winked at the star struck boy, marked him, wished him a good time tonight, and left.

[Hikaru]

Approved Mutations

Empathy:

Competence: Hikaru’s conquest to become a powerful man revolves around his view of a perfect life. A life filled with money, power, and women. His drive for improving himself has always stemmed from his deep jealousy of the upper class. This has also had a significant impact with his romantic endeavors. All intimate encounters have been one-time affairs which have degraded his view of love to a point where he can no longer tell the difference between love and lust.

Hikaru’s spark has recognized these connections. Feelings of jealousy and lust fuels Hikaru to grow stronger while other emotions bring him down. The spark has now gifted Hikaru with the ability to taste and smell emotions as a greater incentive to indulge in those emotions and grow stronger. Lust and jealousy are tasty while other emotions are stale or bitter. As Hikaru’s spark grows, so does the refinement of his palette; he will require pure lust and jealousy to truly satisfying to taste.

Expertise: Hikaru's preference for lust and jealously has turned into more of a need than a want. The spark’s previous incentive for Hikaru to grow in power had the inadvertent side effect of making him addicted to these emotions. The addiction manifests as a “thirst” for lust and jealousy that can only be satiated by manipulating these emotions in others.
Because of this, Hikaru is often overly enthusiastic to a fault when manipulating these emotions on his own. The spark has adapted to secretly manipulate Hikaru’s own tangle in subtle ways to prevent him from messing up his own endeavors. This allows Hikaru to more easily work his magic on his targets.

Mastery: Hikaru's full blown addiction for lust and jealousy has now eliminated his ability to ever experience love. In place of love, he will always see/smell/taste lust which can lead to unintended consequences. The spark has adapted to cause these emotions (and these only) to sing out to him, making the task of finding these emotions in the tangle incredibly easy.

As an extension to his addiction, for every day that Hikaru does not get his fix his witchbrand spreads out over his body. Tattoos begin to form starting at the fingertips and will cover his hands and arms the first day and extend throughout his whole body within 7 days. Indulging in lust and/or jealousy resets this. The tattoos serve to be more eye-catching and mesmerizing to Hikaru’s targets in order to make him seem more interesting and unique.

Mastery: The spark is fully aware of the incredible risks powerful withdrawal could have on its own existence. To counteract withdrawal symptoms, the spark has now adapted to automatically cutting off negative emotions in Hikaru’s tangle and tying them into whoever is nearby. If Hikaru’s mood becomes too poor then the spark will take tie in emotions from others in an attempt to cheer Hikaru up. This is so effective, that Hikaru effectively loses the ability to be extremely angry, grieve, etc. when in the presence of others. This effect does not manifest for small amounts of negative emotions; the threshold is typically when Hikaru would be emotional enough to make an impulse decision.

Rupturing:

Competence: Hikaru’s rupturing spark is never as strong as his empathy spark, mostly because Hikaru views it as a tool as opposed to a way of life. Because of this, rupturing magic is sealed away and the spark is entirely undetectable in its dormant state. To activate rupturing magic, Hikaru must now trace a symbol across his forehead with mud which will then begin to glow faintly. In an effort to be used, Hikaru will have a temptation to trace the required symbol on his forehead. This will grow from unnoticeable to irritating to irresistible over the course of several days. This time span will decrease as his spark grows in power.

Expertise: Hikaru can now activate rupturing magic without the need for mud, but he must still trace the symbol across his forehead. The spark has also figured out how to force itself out of being sealed and can do so if Hikaru resists temptation for too long. Once rupturing magic has been triggered for the day, Hikaru's irises become light violet until he sleeps. This allows him to get a feel of what emotions lie on the other side.

Mastery: Despite Hikaru’s views on rupturing remaining the same (just a tool), the spark has grown to rival empathy in terms of dominance. It now feels the need to compete directly with the empathy spark for revelation. The symbol across Hikaru’s head is now permanently visible, albeit it is quite feint when dormant.

The spark has also adapted to making the most out of being unleashed by strongly compelling Hikaru to use rupturing magic involuntarily. This effect lasts until the symbols fade which varies depending on the amount of ether being used.

Effects are random and rarely detrimental. Effects are limited to novice and competent-level abilities. For example:
Blinking several feet back and forth when intending remain still
Creating random phasing portals along walls
Skystepping instead of setting foot on stairs
Anger or frustration may cause his speech to boom
Being lustful may cause scrying portals to appear to women he fancies.

Mastery: After realizing what Hikaru goes through when he has emotional withdrawal (see empathy mutations), the rupturing spark has adapted to guide Hikaru towards or away from certain emotions. Nightmares or being incredibly frightened might cause the spark to a pull Hikaru into a portal towards someplace he thinks is safe. Craving lust or jealousy might cause the spark to cause Hikaru to splinter or blink in the right direction. This usually occurs to Hikaru’s annoyance at first, but he is appreciative of what the spark does for him.