Sakuya Tachibana / Kamen Rider Garren (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
triggerhappytraitor) wrote2019-12-08 10:17 pm
triggerhappytraitor) wrote2019-12-08 10:17 pm
Prismatic app
Player Information
▶ PLAYER
HANDLE: Fran
CONTACT: https://www.plurk.com/Frannyan or Frannyan@gmail.com
OVER 18? Yep
CHARACTERS IN-GAME: N/A
▶ CHARACTER
NAME: Sakuya Tachibana / Kamen Rider Garren
CANON: Kamen Rider Blade
CANON POINT: Post series and drama CD, plus about 2 years spent in Syn
AGE: 37 (Current apperance)
BACKGROUND:
Tachibana is a researcher turned monster fighting hero, who walks through a rotating door of alliances, each time believing he is doing the right thing.
The first of the four Kamen Riders in the series, Tachibana’s role in the series shifts back and forth, first the seeming antagonist as his actions in the start of the series are painted as being what destroyed BOARD -- the organization researching the Undead and creating the Rider system that allowed the creation of Kamen Riders. Swiftly in it’s revealed that his only hand in the destruction was failing to contain the Undead that trashed the lab, and that his kidnapping of Karasuma, the one in charge of the Riders at BOARD, was to find answers to his mysterious failing health that seemed to be connected to the Rider system.
The truth behind his health is revealed to be a flaw in the Rider System; it works with the Rider's mental state. When the Rider is in the proper mindset, it amplifies his physical abilities, but when the wrong mental state, in Tachibana's case, one heavily influenced by fear, it can cause a backlash, resulting in Tachibana's feeling as if he’s falling apart.
After first trying to rid himself of his fears through pure force of will and failing, Tachibana attempts to give up being a Rider and live a normal life, an attempt that is short lived as an Undead shows up where he and Sayoko are on a date, prompting a fight he swiftly loses. Soon after, he's approached by the Peacock Undead, Isaka, who offers him a cure for his fears. Tachibana refuses, but is easily overpowered and defeated, leading to the Undead applying the cure to to the unconscious Rider.
The “cure” is an ancient seaweed that was used by the Undead to boost their fighting abilities that acts like a steroid. Under both the influence of the seaweed and Isaka's manipulations, Tachibana becomes Isaka's lacky, fighting against Kenzaki, the other BOARD Kamen Rider that Tachibana mentored, and Hajime, an Undead Rider.
Sayoko finds out that continued use of the seaweed will destroy Tachibana's nervous system, and attempts to get him to stop using it. Tachibana rebuffs her attempts and breaks up with her, telling her that their worlds are too different. However, Sayoko continues trying to get him to stop, resulting in Isaka killing her for "getting in Tachibana's way."
Before he even becomes aware of that, however, Tachibana rebels against Isaka, only to be swiftly defeated as the effects of the seaweed run out. He then stumbles across Sayoko as she's dying.
After her funeral, he tracks down Isaka, confirming that the Undead is the one who killed her and attacks. With nothing left to lose, his fear is gone, and he's able to overpower and seal Isaka.
He returns his Rider System to Karasuma, meaning to quit being a Rider for good, but the plot doesn't let him stay away long. He witnesses Mutsuki finding the 4th belt and returns to the rest of the group to try and find the teen and retrieve the cursed belt. He resists taking his own back, however, despite Kenzaki's urging, feeling like he can't.
In his search for Mutsuki, he spots Kiryu, the original candidate for the Garren System, who had lost his arm in the compatibility trial and left BOARD. Kiryu had become a vigilante, killing those he deemed wicked in the name of justice, something that horrifies Tachibana who used to look up to the man.
Kiryu manages to get ahold of the 4th belt, Leangle, and is able to transform. He taunts Tachibana, demanding that he take up Garren again and fight him. Tachibana finally does, but Kiryu is killed by Undead after Leangle returns to Mutsuki.
Because Mutsuki is being manipulated by the Undead in the belt, Tachibana feels a kinship with him, and decides to mentor him, to teach him to take control of the belt’s power and not be a puppet to it. For a short while, his efforts seem to pay off, but Mutsuki soon slips more fully under the Spider Undead's power, even going as far as to attack Tachibana and hospitalize him before fully taking on the altered persona of the Spider Undead's influence.
Tachibana continues to reach out for him, however, repeatedly trying to break through the influence to return Mutsuki to his true self.
However, the arrival of an unsealable Undead, a "Trial" temporarily redirects his energies, as he's contacted by the man who caused the Undead to be unsealed, Hirose's father who supposedly had died in the unsealing. According to Mr. Hirose, Kenzaki is in danger of becoming a second Joker, an Undead, and the Trials that he has created are part of his plan to stop that transformation. To both help save Kenzaki, and to try and get Mr. Hirose to return to the "kind" version of Hirose's father and reconnect with her, Tachibana works alongside him, despite increasing reservations about the man's methods. It's finally revealed that Mr. Hirose's true intentions are to ensure Kenzaki's transformation to an Undead as part of his goal to discover the secret of eternal life.
In addition, the version of Mr. Hirose Tachibana had been working with turns out to be a Trial himself, one that was given the memories of the original and modified by the head of BOARD, Tennouji, to continue the work of discovering the secrets of the Undead.
With the decision that the Riders have outlived their usefulness, Tennouji sends his latest creation, Titan, to infect the Riders with a poison that will turn them into Undead.
Mutsuki is the first to fall to it, but through the efforts of the Tiger Undead and Shima, the Tarantula Undead, (and some assistance from Tachibana) not only is able to fight off the poison, but to finally break the control of the Spider Undead.
The four Riders finally united on the same side of battle and only 2 Undead left (one being Hajime), Tennouji takes center stage. His final trump is Cerberus, an artificially constructed Ace that he merges with to become an Undead himself. He reveals that his true plan all along was to cause the Battle Fight to restart, use the Riders to eliminate almost all of the Undead, become an Undead himself and then step in to win the Battle Fight and receive the ultimate prize: a wish to remake the world in the image of his choosing.
The team up of all four Riders, plus the unlikely help from the other remaining, unsealed Undead (Kanai), swiftly defeats him, however, Kanai killing him and taking the Cerberus card, a card that allows anyone to seal Undead. The true ace in the hole for the restarted Battle Fight was the inaction of the Battle Fight "Master," the sealing stone. With the Stone inactive, the only ones able to seal the Undead were the Riders and Joker, Hajime's Undead form. With Cerberus, Kanai is determined to seal Hajime and win the Battle Fight himself.
Hajime's fighting ability, however, is hampered by the risk that if he, as Joker, wins the Battle Fight, it's a mulligan; all life is destroyed and the world is reset.
Tachibana attempts to have Mutsuki assist him in a last ditch plan; Unseal the Human Undead that Hajime has been borrowing the form of, seal Hajime and Kanai, leaving the Human Undead the winner and preserving the world. Mutsuki, however, refuses, choosing like Kenzaki had, to trust in Hajime. Despite easily overpowering Mutsuki and being in a position where sealing Hajime would be far too easy, Tachibana can't bring himself to do it, and instead goes after Kanai alone.
Despite the Undead's repeated reminder that if Joker wins, the world will be destroyed, Tachibana insists that with everything he's lost, the only thing he has left is his friends and his trust in them. Kanai manages to knock the sealing card from Tachibana's hand over the cliff into the ocean, but Tachibana grabs hold of the Undead and jumps after the card, managing to seal him before his transform finally breaks, leaving only cards and the damaged Garren buckle for Kenzaki and everyone to find.
Like his previous brushes with death, however, he manages to survive. Karasuma locates and rescues him from the ocean, even as Joker's victory has started the slow destruction of the world; the spawning of uncountable Dark Roaches. Despite everything, it looks as if there's only one way to save the world; Sealing Joker.
Even with the Garren system broken, Tachibana attempts to take the Blade buckle to go to fight Hajime so that Kenzaki doesn't have to, but Kenzaki stops him and goes after Hajime himself.
But rather than seal Hajime, Kenzaki instead had been working on doing what he and everyone else had been trying to prevent; his transformation into a second Joker. With two unsealed Undead, the Battle Fight victory is called off, and the Sealing Stone appears to order the two to fight. Kenzaki says instead, he'll fight fate. Telling Hajime to continue living amongst the humans, he runs off, swiftly vanishing.
The 10 years post canon for Tachibana were largely uneventful, but the effects of canon had left him with a very deep depression that he only seemed to surface from when Mutsuki came to see him. He feels like he was an utter failure, and doesn’t see any of his own contributions to preventing the end of the world. Even when a younger coworker tells him that he and Kenzaki saved him and thanks Tachibana for it, Tachibana only thinks of Kenzaki, giving him all the credit when the coworker was very specifically thanking Tachibana.
Also over those 10 years, Kotaro’s book on the events had been published (with small edits to preserve the identity of those involved and to cover up Hajime and now Kenzaki’s status as Undead)
[End canon, start CRAU]
His entrance into Synodiporia was a slightly bumpy one, but one that allowed a reunion with Kenzaki, something which started Tachibana on the path to finally healing from the trauma of the Battle Fight. There was also a version of Hajime there, who had been reincarnated into another world first before arriving. Despite multiple fights, blow ups and general conflicts, Tachibana and Hajime wound up somehow becoming very good friends, something that neither man really understood, but did eventually come to accept.
Traveling through multiple worlds, Tachibana eventually began to find some semblance of purpose again. In a world where the merfolk were being terrorized by a plague, he and another man worked together and developed a cure and vaccine for the disease, giving him the first hint of the good that he could do in the world. After this point, he began earnestly studying the diagnostic end of medicine, working towards gaining the skills and knowledge he would need to become a doctor, rather than just a medical researcher. One world, in which he lived as an alternate version of himself who was an herbalist medic, gave him an in depth knowledge of herbalism and traditional medicine, but also left him with ichor in his veins, something which made him immortal.
It took quite some time for Tachibana to come to terms with this immortality, and also to finally acknowledge the fact that he had spent the last 12 years being utterly careless with his own life, being willing to throw it away for any reason. Facing the depths of his depression, his self-isolating patterns and lack of value that he placed on himself was a slow, difficult journey that was helped along by his experiences living as alternate versions of himself.
Most worlds he lived other lives in also had versions of Sayoko, often ones who had similarly been killed or had died in the past. One of the lives that carried the largest mental shock was one where he and that world’s Sayoko had had a child before she had passed, and with in the time he was living that life, met another woman, fell in love and married her.
It says much about Tachibana that this storybook happy ending was such a shock that he retreated into his own mind and had to be rescued by his friends. Said friends waded through memories of Tachibana’s past traumas, and in the end, fought against representations of Isaka, Karasuma, Kiryuu and Trial B/Mr. Hirose, acting as Tachibana’s defense mechanisms. Having so much of himself laid bare started Tachibana properly opening up to some of his closest friends and starting to learn how to ask for help (even if he still was very reluctant to.)
In addition to supporting friends, Tachibana gained a companion in one world; a small pogemon (a creature from a generic ‘mon anime world) named Garren. This pogemon was in many respects, that world’s version of Tachibana. A small, cartoon like creature who lived in armor that was a simplified version of Tachibana’s own, Garren's first partner had been that world’s version of Sayoko. Childlike and nonverbal, Garren latched on to Tachibana due to their similarities, and Tachibana functionally adopted him, caring for him much like a parent would. Attempting to help Garren with his fears and insecurities was a large step for Tachibana acknowledging and addressing his own. Having this small creature attached and dependant on him also gave Tachibana another reason to keep his own wellbeing in mind.
Near the end of his stay in Syn, ironically after finally coming to terms with the fact that he couldn’t keep mourning Sayoko forever, Sayoko herself arrived during a moment of utter chaos (a 4th wall event.) The reunion was very emotional and intense for them both, and Tachibana soon after finally corrected one of his life’s biggest regrets and proposed to her.
PERSONALITY:
Tachibana, at his base core, is an idealistic man who puts the needs of others before his own without thought. Rash, impulsive, but full of good intentions that rarely go how he thinks they will, he survives the series having lost almost everything he once had, deeply shattered from his battle against the Undead, and only though his journeys in Synodiporia does he finally begin to heal from the ordeal.
Tachibana's faith in other people is a core motivation that, despite multiple betrayals, never wavers for long. Even when faced with the knowledge that Joker winning the Battle Fight will destroy the world, he can't bring himself to seal Hajime, even when given multiple clean opportunities to do so.
Despite the stoic and collected exterior that he does his best to hold in place whenever around others, Tachibana very easily gives in to his emotions. He often makes very rash decisions, jumping to conclusions and rushing in, ready to fight for what he thinks is the right thing.
Tachibana views himself as weak and blames himself for much of everything that goes wrong around him, regardless if he had any influence on it at all. Because of his failings as a Rider, allowing his fear to affect him and being unable to fight the way Kenzaki can, he grows angry and bitter, partly to Kenzaki and others, but mostly at himself. He tries, through pure force of will, to overcome his fears and fails utterly, seemingly only to have made himself more afraid in the acknowledgement of the problem.
Tachibana's life revolves completely around others. Even when he's being destroyed by the Rider system amplifying his fear, he's unable to walk away from the fight when people are in danger, even when Sayoko is physically trying to pull him to safety. After he quits being Garren, Mutsuki finding Leangle's buckle pulls him back in, and it's only in attempting to save Mutsuki from suffering a similar fate to his own that allows him to pull himself back together after being shattered by the loss of Sayoko. During the entire series, he's striving to help or save someone, whether it's protecting people from being attacked by Undead, trying to bring Hirose's father back to his old self so that he'll reunite with his daughter, trying to save Kenzaki from becoming an Undead or even trying to keep Kenzaki from having to seal Hajime. Even before the series, he had joined BOARD to help humanity, and him becoming Garren was because Kiryu, the first to attempt becoming Garren, insisted that he could do it.
Kiryu's brief return to Tachibana's life also illustrated how deeply attached to, and influenced by, people Tachibana can get. Just seeing a small glance of his former mentor is enough to send Tachibana searching for him, and he's utterly devastated to find that Kiryu has become a vigilante and murderer. Despite angrily declaring that the old Kiryu was dead, when told by Kenzaki that Kiryu's true self was calling for Tachibana to save him, he wants to believe it, and it's enough to get him to take up being Garren again. Similarly, when faced with Tennouji's true intentions, Tachibana is all but physically pained at the utter betrayal, and yet, when Tennouji is killed by an Undead, Tachibana gets incredibly upset, yelling that despite having fused with and Undead to become one, Tennouji was still human, defending the man who would have destroyed the entire world.
Tachibana so easily looks up to others, despite so often finding out that those he respected were manipulative and only out for their own good. He doesn't really ever learn from his mistakes and repeated betrayals, remaining idealistic til the end. He is far more a follower than a leader, despite being often stuck in a position where he's both leader and mentor to the younger Riders of the group. He very easily falls in line behind those who take charge, and all but blindly believes in them, especially those whom he had worked for before. Yet despite this, he very easily shifts to mentor mode when needed.
As a mentor, he's hard and demanding, yet at the same time, compassionate and caring. In Mutsuki's training, he pulls no punches, neither in combat training, nor in chewing the teen out when he runs away. Yet when Mutsuki needs it, Tachibana is easily able to offer him a strong shoulder to lean on, and warm encouragement. He repeatedly reaches out to Mutsuki, even when the teen is possessed, and even after that possession landed Tachibana in the hospital. (Even in the hospital, Tachibana attempts to protect Mutsuki, saying that he fell, and looks quite upset when no one believes him.) His care for his younger Riders often comes out a touch harsh (especially when dealing with Kenzaki) but always comes from a good place, and a want to protect them.
After BOARD is rebuilt and the world has moved on from the aftermath of the Battle Fight, Tachibana’s anger and urgency dulls to a tired melconoly. He refers to himself as old, and his coworker expresses surprise when he sees a picture of a younger Tachibana smiling. With no mission to keep him moving, the losses Tachibana suffered gained much more weight, leaving him almost a ghost of his former self.
Some of the damage of the 10 years of stagnation was eased in Synodiporia, Tachibana's reunion with Kenzaki starting the healing processes. Slowly, he began to entertain the idea that he had intrinsic value, that he had something more to offer to others than simply his willingness to give up his life. Having those he had grown attached to willing to wade through the toxic mess of his memories and haul him out of his own wounded psyche finally forced him to realize that not only did he have friends, but he had friends willing to fight for him, even after seeing the depths of his despair.
POWERS/ABILITIES:
The majority of Tachibana’s abilities are tied into the Rider System that allows him to become Garren and the cards of the sealed Undead. The wiki has a list of all the cards he has and the forms that his transformation allows him, as well as all the bits and bobs that go with it. The short-short version is that he gains armor, a general stat boost, hella stamina, the ability to shoot fireballs from his gun, and in general, beat things up with fire. Also kick things so hard that they explode in an overly dramatic way that... doesn't actually cause any physical damage. But looks real cool!TV show logic
There is one addition, however: Even when not transformed, he has what could be best described as fast vision (" Simultaneous Eyesight" ). When he was showing the skill to Mutsuki, it allowed him to see the number on a baseball fired from a machine at high speed. It's something that he cultivated through practice and it's implied in canon that it's a skill anyone can learn (as he taught it to another character)
For basic skills, he has working knowledge of motorcycle mechanics, electrical mechanics, superior driving skills on a motorcycle, good reflexes, high stamina, fighting skills and the normal TV show level ability to recover swiftly from injury. He’s also coming from a background of bio-tech research and has the knowledge and skills to go with it, as well as additional knowledge from extensive research on the Undead.
Additional knowledge and skills gained in Synodiporia include:
"Clockpunk" (Steampunk) engineering, Hovercraft and anti-gravity mechanics, Sign language, Herbal medicine (Knowledge of the medicinal properties of herbs and plants, and how to extract them so that they can be used), Nursing (circa 1990, Earth), "Secret Agent Training" (Described as: The various skills one requires to be an agent of a shadowy, nameless government organization. Comes with a black suit)
[[Syn add ons]]
INVENTORY:
Rider System, Rouzer, Rouze Absorber and Cards (Note: the wiki is garbage and they put the information in the least helpful format possible. Tachibana’s cards are the Diamond suit ones): These allow Tachibana to transform in to Kamen Rider Garren. The Garren armor is pretty resilient, self repairing, and responds to Tachibana’s mental state.
As these items functionally exist in a hammer-space in the show (all of this gear fits in the pockets of his slacks)
MOONBLESSING: Iris
▶ SAMPLES
TDM thread
Note: The CRAU Tachibana is being pulled from was a game he left a bit over a year ago. He did get that CRAU moved to another game, but as he didn't really make any progress there, I'm not having him retain those memories. As such, I'm providing two links here so you can decide if more recent or more relevant is more on target.
Older thread from Syn
Newer thread from a different game
▶ PLAYER
HANDLE: Fran
CONTACT: https://www.plurk.com/Frannyan or Frannyan@gmail.com
OVER 18? Yep
CHARACTERS IN-GAME: N/A
▶ CHARACTER
NAME: Sakuya Tachibana / Kamen Rider Garren
CANON: Kamen Rider Blade
CANON POINT: Post series and drama CD, plus about 2 years spent in Syn
AGE: 37 (Current apperance)
BACKGROUND:
Tachibana is a researcher turned monster fighting hero, who walks through a rotating door of alliances, each time believing he is doing the right thing.
The first of the four Kamen Riders in the series, Tachibana’s role in the series shifts back and forth, first the seeming antagonist as his actions in the start of the series are painted as being what destroyed BOARD -- the organization researching the Undead and creating the Rider system that allowed the creation of Kamen Riders. Swiftly in it’s revealed that his only hand in the destruction was failing to contain the Undead that trashed the lab, and that his kidnapping of Karasuma, the one in charge of the Riders at BOARD, was to find answers to his mysterious failing health that seemed to be connected to the Rider system.
The truth behind his health is revealed to be a flaw in the Rider System; it works with the Rider's mental state. When the Rider is in the proper mindset, it amplifies his physical abilities, but when the wrong mental state, in Tachibana's case, one heavily influenced by fear, it can cause a backlash, resulting in Tachibana's feeling as if he’s falling apart.
After first trying to rid himself of his fears through pure force of will and failing, Tachibana attempts to give up being a Rider and live a normal life, an attempt that is short lived as an Undead shows up where he and Sayoko are on a date, prompting a fight he swiftly loses. Soon after, he's approached by the Peacock Undead, Isaka, who offers him a cure for his fears. Tachibana refuses, but is easily overpowered and defeated, leading to the Undead applying the cure to to the unconscious Rider.
The “cure” is an ancient seaweed that was used by the Undead to boost their fighting abilities that acts like a steroid. Under both the influence of the seaweed and Isaka's manipulations, Tachibana becomes Isaka's lacky, fighting against Kenzaki, the other BOARD Kamen Rider that Tachibana mentored, and Hajime, an Undead Rider.
Sayoko finds out that continued use of the seaweed will destroy Tachibana's nervous system, and attempts to get him to stop using it. Tachibana rebuffs her attempts and breaks up with her, telling her that their worlds are too different. However, Sayoko continues trying to get him to stop, resulting in Isaka killing her for "getting in Tachibana's way."
Before he even becomes aware of that, however, Tachibana rebels against Isaka, only to be swiftly defeated as the effects of the seaweed run out. He then stumbles across Sayoko as she's dying.
After her funeral, he tracks down Isaka, confirming that the Undead is the one who killed her and attacks. With nothing left to lose, his fear is gone, and he's able to overpower and seal Isaka.
He returns his Rider System to Karasuma, meaning to quit being a Rider for good, but the plot doesn't let him stay away long. He witnesses Mutsuki finding the 4th belt and returns to the rest of the group to try and find the teen and retrieve the cursed belt. He resists taking his own back, however, despite Kenzaki's urging, feeling like he can't.
In his search for Mutsuki, he spots Kiryu, the original candidate for the Garren System, who had lost his arm in the compatibility trial and left BOARD. Kiryu had become a vigilante, killing those he deemed wicked in the name of justice, something that horrifies Tachibana who used to look up to the man.
Kiryu manages to get ahold of the 4th belt, Leangle, and is able to transform. He taunts Tachibana, demanding that he take up Garren again and fight him. Tachibana finally does, but Kiryu is killed by Undead after Leangle returns to Mutsuki.
Because Mutsuki is being manipulated by the Undead in the belt, Tachibana feels a kinship with him, and decides to mentor him, to teach him to take control of the belt’s power and not be a puppet to it. For a short while, his efforts seem to pay off, but Mutsuki soon slips more fully under the Spider Undead's power, even going as far as to attack Tachibana and hospitalize him before fully taking on the altered persona of the Spider Undead's influence.
Tachibana continues to reach out for him, however, repeatedly trying to break through the influence to return Mutsuki to his true self.
However, the arrival of an unsealable Undead, a "Trial" temporarily redirects his energies, as he's contacted by the man who caused the Undead to be unsealed, Hirose's father who supposedly had died in the unsealing. According to Mr. Hirose, Kenzaki is in danger of becoming a second Joker, an Undead, and the Trials that he has created are part of his plan to stop that transformation. To both help save Kenzaki, and to try and get Mr. Hirose to return to the "kind" version of Hirose's father and reconnect with her, Tachibana works alongside him, despite increasing reservations about the man's methods. It's finally revealed that Mr. Hirose's true intentions are to ensure Kenzaki's transformation to an Undead as part of his goal to discover the secret of eternal life.
In addition, the version of Mr. Hirose Tachibana had been working with turns out to be a Trial himself, one that was given the memories of the original and modified by the head of BOARD, Tennouji, to continue the work of discovering the secrets of the Undead.
With the decision that the Riders have outlived their usefulness, Tennouji sends his latest creation, Titan, to infect the Riders with a poison that will turn them into Undead.
Mutsuki is the first to fall to it, but through the efforts of the Tiger Undead and Shima, the Tarantula Undead, (and some assistance from Tachibana) not only is able to fight off the poison, but to finally break the control of the Spider Undead.
The four Riders finally united on the same side of battle and only 2 Undead left (one being Hajime), Tennouji takes center stage. His final trump is Cerberus, an artificially constructed Ace that he merges with to become an Undead himself. He reveals that his true plan all along was to cause the Battle Fight to restart, use the Riders to eliminate almost all of the Undead, become an Undead himself and then step in to win the Battle Fight and receive the ultimate prize: a wish to remake the world in the image of his choosing.
The team up of all four Riders, plus the unlikely help from the other remaining, unsealed Undead (Kanai), swiftly defeats him, however, Kanai killing him and taking the Cerberus card, a card that allows anyone to seal Undead. The true ace in the hole for the restarted Battle Fight was the inaction of the Battle Fight "Master," the sealing stone. With the Stone inactive, the only ones able to seal the Undead were the Riders and Joker, Hajime's Undead form. With Cerberus, Kanai is determined to seal Hajime and win the Battle Fight himself.
Hajime's fighting ability, however, is hampered by the risk that if he, as Joker, wins the Battle Fight, it's a mulligan; all life is destroyed and the world is reset.
Tachibana attempts to have Mutsuki assist him in a last ditch plan; Unseal the Human Undead that Hajime has been borrowing the form of, seal Hajime and Kanai, leaving the Human Undead the winner and preserving the world. Mutsuki, however, refuses, choosing like Kenzaki had, to trust in Hajime. Despite easily overpowering Mutsuki and being in a position where sealing Hajime would be far too easy, Tachibana can't bring himself to do it, and instead goes after Kanai alone.
Despite the Undead's repeated reminder that if Joker wins, the world will be destroyed, Tachibana insists that with everything he's lost, the only thing he has left is his friends and his trust in them. Kanai manages to knock the sealing card from Tachibana's hand over the cliff into the ocean, but Tachibana grabs hold of the Undead and jumps after the card, managing to seal him before his transform finally breaks, leaving only cards and the damaged Garren buckle for Kenzaki and everyone to find.
Like his previous brushes with death, however, he manages to survive. Karasuma locates and rescues him from the ocean, even as Joker's victory has started the slow destruction of the world; the spawning of uncountable Dark Roaches. Despite everything, it looks as if there's only one way to save the world; Sealing Joker.
Even with the Garren system broken, Tachibana attempts to take the Blade buckle to go to fight Hajime so that Kenzaki doesn't have to, but Kenzaki stops him and goes after Hajime himself.
But rather than seal Hajime, Kenzaki instead had been working on doing what he and everyone else had been trying to prevent; his transformation into a second Joker. With two unsealed Undead, the Battle Fight victory is called off, and the Sealing Stone appears to order the two to fight. Kenzaki says instead, he'll fight fate. Telling Hajime to continue living amongst the humans, he runs off, swiftly vanishing.
The 10 years post canon for Tachibana were largely uneventful, but the effects of canon had left him with a very deep depression that he only seemed to surface from when Mutsuki came to see him. He feels like he was an utter failure, and doesn’t see any of his own contributions to preventing the end of the world. Even when a younger coworker tells him that he and Kenzaki saved him and thanks Tachibana for it, Tachibana only thinks of Kenzaki, giving him all the credit when the coworker was very specifically thanking Tachibana.
Also over those 10 years, Kotaro’s book on the events had been published (with small edits to preserve the identity of those involved and to cover up Hajime and now Kenzaki’s status as Undead)
[End canon, start CRAU]
His entrance into Synodiporia was a slightly bumpy one, but one that allowed a reunion with Kenzaki, something which started Tachibana on the path to finally healing from the trauma of the Battle Fight. There was also a version of Hajime there, who had been reincarnated into another world first before arriving. Despite multiple fights, blow ups and general conflicts, Tachibana and Hajime wound up somehow becoming very good friends, something that neither man really understood, but did eventually come to accept.
Traveling through multiple worlds, Tachibana eventually began to find some semblance of purpose again. In a world where the merfolk were being terrorized by a plague, he and another man worked together and developed a cure and vaccine for the disease, giving him the first hint of the good that he could do in the world. After this point, he began earnestly studying the diagnostic end of medicine, working towards gaining the skills and knowledge he would need to become a doctor, rather than just a medical researcher. One world, in which he lived as an alternate version of himself who was an herbalist medic, gave him an in depth knowledge of herbalism and traditional medicine, but also left him with ichor in his veins, something which made him immortal.
It took quite some time for Tachibana to come to terms with this immortality, and also to finally acknowledge the fact that he had spent the last 12 years being utterly careless with his own life, being willing to throw it away for any reason. Facing the depths of his depression, his self-isolating patterns and lack of value that he placed on himself was a slow, difficult journey that was helped along by his experiences living as alternate versions of himself.
Most worlds he lived other lives in also had versions of Sayoko, often ones who had similarly been killed or had died in the past. One of the lives that carried the largest mental shock was one where he and that world’s Sayoko had had a child before she had passed, and with in the time he was living that life, met another woman, fell in love and married her.
It says much about Tachibana that this storybook happy ending was such a shock that he retreated into his own mind and had to be rescued by his friends. Said friends waded through memories of Tachibana’s past traumas, and in the end, fought against representations of Isaka, Karasuma, Kiryuu and Trial B/Mr. Hirose, acting as Tachibana’s defense mechanisms. Having so much of himself laid bare started Tachibana properly opening up to some of his closest friends and starting to learn how to ask for help (even if he still was very reluctant to.)
In addition to supporting friends, Tachibana gained a companion in one world; a small pogemon (a creature from a generic ‘mon anime world) named Garren. This pogemon was in many respects, that world’s version of Tachibana. A small, cartoon like creature who lived in armor that was a simplified version of Tachibana’s own, Garren's first partner had been that world’s version of Sayoko. Childlike and nonverbal, Garren latched on to Tachibana due to their similarities, and Tachibana functionally adopted him, caring for him much like a parent would. Attempting to help Garren with his fears and insecurities was a large step for Tachibana acknowledging and addressing his own. Having this small creature attached and dependant on him also gave Tachibana another reason to keep his own wellbeing in mind.
Near the end of his stay in Syn, ironically after finally coming to terms with the fact that he couldn’t keep mourning Sayoko forever, Sayoko herself arrived during a moment of utter chaos (a 4th wall event.) The reunion was very emotional and intense for them both, and Tachibana soon after finally corrected one of his life’s biggest regrets and proposed to her.
PERSONALITY:
Tachibana, at his base core, is an idealistic man who puts the needs of others before his own without thought. Rash, impulsive, but full of good intentions that rarely go how he thinks they will, he survives the series having lost almost everything he once had, deeply shattered from his battle against the Undead, and only though his journeys in Synodiporia does he finally begin to heal from the ordeal.
Tachibana's faith in other people is a core motivation that, despite multiple betrayals, never wavers for long. Even when faced with the knowledge that Joker winning the Battle Fight will destroy the world, he can't bring himself to seal Hajime, even when given multiple clean opportunities to do so.
Despite the stoic and collected exterior that he does his best to hold in place whenever around others, Tachibana very easily gives in to his emotions. He often makes very rash decisions, jumping to conclusions and rushing in, ready to fight for what he thinks is the right thing.
Tachibana views himself as weak and blames himself for much of everything that goes wrong around him, regardless if he had any influence on it at all. Because of his failings as a Rider, allowing his fear to affect him and being unable to fight the way Kenzaki can, he grows angry and bitter, partly to Kenzaki and others, but mostly at himself. He tries, through pure force of will, to overcome his fears and fails utterly, seemingly only to have made himself more afraid in the acknowledgement of the problem.
Tachibana's life revolves completely around others. Even when he's being destroyed by the Rider system amplifying his fear, he's unable to walk away from the fight when people are in danger, even when Sayoko is physically trying to pull him to safety. After he quits being Garren, Mutsuki finding Leangle's buckle pulls him back in, and it's only in attempting to save Mutsuki from suffering a similar fate to his own that allows him to pull himself back together after being shattered by the loss of Sayoko. During the entire series, he's striving to help or save someone, whether it's protecting people from being attacked by Undead, trying to bring Hirose's father back to his old self so that he'll reunite with his daughter, trying to save Kenzaki from becoming an Undead or even trying to keep Kenzaki from having to seal Hajime. Even before the series, he had joined BOARD to help humanity, and him becoming Garren was because Kiryu, the first to attempt becoming Garren, insisted that he could do it.
Kiryu's brief return to Tachibana's life also illustrated how deeply attached to, and influenced by, people Tachibana can get. Just seeing a small glance of his former mentor is enough to send Tachibana searching for him, and he's utterly devastated to find that Kiryu has become a vigilante and murderer. Despite angrily declaring that the old Kiryu was dead, when told by Kenzaki that Kiryu's true self was calling for Tachibana to save him, he wants to believe it, and it's enough to get him to take up being Garren again. Similarly, when faced with Tennouji's true intentions, Tachibana is all but physically pained at the utter betrayal, and yet, when Tennouji is killed by an Undead, Tachibana gets incredibly upset, yelling that despite having fused with and Undead to become one, Tennouji was still human, defending the man who would have destroyed the entire world.
Tachibana so easily looks up to others, despite so often finding out that those he respected were manipulative and only out for their own good. He doesn't really ever learn from his mistakes and repeated betrayals, remaining idealistic til the end. He is far more a follower than a leader, despite being often stuck in a position where he's both leader and mentor to the younger Riders of the group. He very easily falls in line behind those who take charge, and all but blindly believes in them, especially those whom he had worked for before. Yet despite this, he very easily shifts to mentor mode when needed.
As a mentor, he's hard and demanding, yet at the same time, compassionate and caring. In Mutsuki's training, he pulls no punches, neither in combat training, nor in chewing the teen out when he runs away. Yet when Mutsuki needs it, Tachibana is easily able to offer him a strong shoulder to lean on, and warm encouragement. He repeatedly reaches out to Mutsuki, even when the teen is possessed, and even after that possession landed Tachibana in the hospital. (Even in the hospital, Tachibana attempts to protect Mutsuki, saying that he fell, and looks quite upset when no one believes him.) His care for his younger Riders often comes out a touch harsh (especially when dealing with Kenzaki) but always comes from a good place, and a want to protect them.
After BOARD is rebuilt and the world has moved on from the aftermath of the Battle Fight, Tachibana’s anger and urgency dulls to a tired melconoly. He refers to himself as old, and his coworker expresses surprise when he sees a picture of a younger Tachibana smiling. With no mission to keep him moving, the losses Tachibana suffered gained much more weight, leaving him almost a ghost of his former self.
Some of the damage of the 10 years of stagnation was eased in Synodiporia, Tachibana's reunion with Kenzaki starting the healing processes. Slowly, he began to entertain the idea that he had intrinsic value, that he had something more to offer to others than simply his willingness to give up his life. Having those he had grown attached to willing to wade through the toxic mess of his memories and haul him out of his own wounded psyche finally forced him to realize that not only did he have friends, but he had friends willing to fight for him, even after seeing the depths of his despair.
POWERS/ABILITIES:
The majority of Tachibana’s abilities are tied into the Rider System that allows him to become Garren and the cards of the sealed Undead. The wiki has a list of all the cards he has and the forms that his transformation allows him, as well as all the bits and bobs that go with it. The short-short version is that he gains armor, a general stat boost, hella stamina, the ability to shoot fireballs from his gun, and in general, beat things up with fire. Also kick things so hard that they explode in an overly dramatic way that... doesn't actually cause any physical damage. But looks real cool!
There is one addition, however: Even when not transformed, he has what could be best described as fast vision (" Simultaneous Eyesight" ). When he was showing the skill to Mutsuki, it allowed him to see the number on a baseball fired from a machine at high speed. It's something that he cultivated through practice and it's implied in canon that it's a skill anyone can learn (as he taught it to another character)
For basic skills, he has working knowledge of motorcycle mechanics, electrical mechanics, superior driving skills on a motorcycle, good reflexes, high stamina, fighting skills and the normal TV show level ability to recover swiftly from injury. He’s also coming from a background of bio-tech research and has the knowledge and skills to go with it, as well as additional knowledge from extensive research on the Undead.
Additional knowledge and skills gained in Synodiporia include:
"Clockpunk" (Steampunk) engineering, Hovercraft and anti-gravity mechanics, Sign language, Herbal medicine (Knowledge of the medicinal properties of herbs and plants, and how to extract them so that they can be used), Nursing (circa 1990, Earth), "Secret Agent Training" (Described as: The various skills one requires to be an agent of a shadowy, nameless government organization. Comes with a black suit)
[[Syn add ons]]
INVENTORY:
Rider System, Rouzer, Rouze Absorber and Cards (Note: the wiki is garbage and they put the information in the least helpful format possible. Tachibana’s cards are the Diamond suit ones): These allow Tachibana to transform in to Kamen Rider Garren. The Garren armor is pretty resilient, self repairing, and responds to Tachibana’s mental state.
As these items functionally exist in a hammer-space in the show (all of this gear fits in the pockets of his slacks)
MOONBLESSING: Iris
▶ SAMPLES
TDM thread
Note: The CRAU Tachibana is being pulled from was a game he left a bit over a year ago. He did get that CRAU moved to another game, but as he didn't really make any progress there, I'm not having him retain those memories. As such, I'm providing two links here so you can decide if more recent or more relevant is more on target.
Older thread from Syn
Newer thread from a different game