Sakuya Le Bel Shirogane (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
carillonetcarrion) wrote2012-03-17 01:06 pm
carillonetcarrion) wrote2012-03-17 01:06 pm
abax app
player information.
name: deino
are you over 18?: yes!
personal dw: deinonychuss
email/msn/aim/plurk/etc: plurk; democratomodon
characters in abax: N/A!
in character information.
series: Hatoful Boyfriend
name: Sakuya Le Bel Shirogane
age: 17!
sex: Male!
race: Fantail Dove. (He's being humanized, though.)
weight: 0.75 pounds as a dove! 130 pounds as a human!
height: 10 inches as a dove! 5'6 as a human!
canon point: Pre-Hurtful, the start of Term 2.
previous cr: N/A!
history: In order to explain Sakuya's personal history, first I should explain his world.
Hatoful Boyfriend is set on earth, with canon events set around the year 2188. In modern times, when birds were still beasts kept merely as pets and decoration, a virus named A(H5N1) appeared. The virus didn't seem to pose much of a threat; at first it merely infected birds, but like diseases before it, it soon mutated and spread to humans. A(H5N1)'s mutated strain was highly infectious and had an extremely high mortality rate. It became clear that it posed a threat to the survival of the human species.
With the power of awesome thinking and ingenuity, the greatest minds of humanity came up with a plan. “Kill all birds!” pretty much sums it up. Engineering an even more powerful virus, the humans prepared to cull birds in order to prevent a pandemic, feeling it was their only choice at the time. Naturally, the new virus didn't work – infected birds didn't die. Their brains grew in size and power. Doves, in particular, were the first to freakin' speak, but soon quails, puffins and many others began to climb the social ladder. (In case you're interested, the prime minister of Japan is a shoebill.)
Thanks to this forced evolution, birds were not as easily preyed upon as they once were. Their predators, no doubt, freaked out when their dinner started yelling at them to let them go. This was bad news for the humans. A(H5N1) spread more rapidly than ever, and with the humans having failed at their only plan of defence, most died out. At the time of Hatoful Boyfriend's setting, only a handful of humans remain, but their coexistance with birds is a relatively peaceful one... though this was not always the case.
In the past, large conflicts cropped up between humans and birds. A human/bird war, for the sake of the earth! Even now, there are groups of extremist humans destroying bird orphanages and torching bird schools, under the guise of a Human Liberation front. Earth in 2188 is rife with tension! There are two political parties, the Dove Party and the Hawk Party, who work to resolve the conflicts between humans and birds.
The Dove Party's goal is to ensure peace and harmony between the remaining humans and birds – they find no reason to deny a tranquil coexistence. The Dove Party also seems to have been involved with an extremely prestigious school, St. Pigeonations, a school with the goal of encouraging bird and human interaction. St. Pigeonations is pretty much the Best of the Best when it comes to education, and it's no wonder Sakuya from the esteemed Le Bel family was sent to study there.
The Hawk Party, however, thinks it would be far better to wipe the rest of those nasty humans out and let birds rule over earth as they always should. They've been slowly chipping away at Pigeonation's “human coexistence” system from the inside, perverting the olive branch into a place of medical experiments and biological warfare in secret.
And this is the place where the once happy school life of Sakuya Le Bel took place. Thankfully, Sakuya's personal history is a lot less dependant on humanity's potential destruction, so let's read on!
Sakuya has been raised ever since he was a child to believe in his own superiority. His father, a man whom he respects very much, taught him since he was young that he was better than “those peasants”. Mr. Le Bel encourages Sakuya to remain conscious of the fact that he, as a Le Bel, is a better person than... anyone else. Ever. “We are the chosen ones”, Mr. Le Bel teaches his son. “It is our duty to guide the foolish common folk.”
His father pushed this lesson onto Sakuya for every day of his life, with growing aggression. He would talk about how the lowerclass, common folk are mere ferals, crawling in the mud with no worth to their lives. Sakuya is taught that were it not for the Le Bel compassion, those disgusting commoners would surely die as miserably as they lived. Their world is not Sakuya's, and Sakuya must never, under any circumstances, interact with them.
With this being the theme of his childhood, Sakuya is duly surprised when his father approaches him, telling him he's sending him far away from his home nation of France – so he can study at St. Pigeonation's in Japan, and bring as much glory to the Le Bel family as is possible. His confusion fades soon, however, as it all makes sense when his father states that a teacher there, Dr. Isa Souma (aka Shuu Iwamine), is in residence at the institution he will be attending.
Dr. Shuu Iwamine! What a bird. If it weren't for said doctor, the Le Bel family wouldn't be as esteemed or influential as it is today. Doctor Iwamine is a well-mannered, polite, potentially murderous professional whose internationally acclaimed research and medicine saved Sakuya's father's life. He is, undoubtedly, the only bird who Sakuya had ever been able to respect, besides his own father. Shuu thinks he's boring and doesn't care, but nevertheless, Sakuya owes a great deal of gratitude to the man who saved his life, and Shuu is the only man Sakuya doesn't verbally abuse during his stay in St. Pigeonation's.
When Sakuya transfers in his second year of highschool, life is pretty boring. The entire first half of Hatoful Boyfriend is, after all, your typical dating sim. Sakuya, being from the Le Bel family, calls pretty much anyone who tries to talk to him a filthy mongrel – especially his half brother, Yuuya. His path in the game, should you choose to go down it, is about how he loves music but his father finds the act of creation a game for peasants, and thus Sakuya feels unable to pursue his goal of being a badass musician. But you, the main character, give him strength to stand up to his father and all that jazz! He moves on! And has a happy life! But unfortunately, these events will never happen, as Sakuya is being apped from the alpha canon line.
In Bad Boy's Love (aka Hurtful Boyfriend), the game's “main” storyline so to speak, Hatoful Boyfriend gets much, much darker. In the student's second term, the main character, Hiyoko, doesn't come to school one day. She misses a lesson on birdkind's history, and Ryouta, her best friend, begins to worry about her. With good reason! It turns out that the human representative of St. Pigeonation's has been murdered and dismembered, the girl's bodyparts being distributed to every class via the day's printboxes. Normal dating game stuff.
A freak out ensues and an alarm soon sounds around the school, ushering everyone into the gymnasium, at which point the principal issues a campus-wide lockdown under the guise of a natural disaster. Sakuya, however, has none of it, and is the one member of the school who demands to know what's really going on – but the principal doesn't answer him, of course. Sakuya spearheads an investigation along with another classmate, Ryouta, and they discover an iron dome has been installed around the school, barring anyone from leaving. They decide to investigate further, talking to the people in charge in order to start finding out what's really going on.
One of the first things they do is try to see the principal, but on the way, they're accosted by a creepy metal scarecrow known as Labor 9. It attacks them, they escape, it's scary, etc etc. Several times the creature attacks them, seperating them or scattering their plans, but because Sakuya and Ryouta are the most badass pigeons to ever exist in the world, they manage to survive the attacks and regroup to continue their investigation. When Sakuya and Ryouta eventually make it to the Principal's office, they find said Principal has been killed thanks to some awesome party-time fun happy nerve toxin. The notice that played informing the students of a natural disaster was a video recording of a disaster drill, a fact which confirms to Sakuya and Ryouta that some serious shit is going down and they need to unearth the facts.
Some more drama happens – some birds are shot, Labor 9 continues to attack them, a possibly insane bird that thinks he's an angel fallen from heaven jumps through a window (but that's business as usual) – and long story short, Sakuya and Ryouta discover the truth behind what's going on in the school. The student who died, Sakuya and Ryouta's human friend who was dismembered and distributed to all classes on school grounds, was a “Human Representative” to St. Pigeonations. Part of her role as representative was as follows: if she were to die within school property, the surviving humans would find her death enough justification for violent retribution against birdkind. Should the girl die, the entire school would be covered with the dome Sakuya and Ryouta have been investigating, and over the following twelve hours, humans armed to the teeth would gather outside it. Once the twelve hours were up, the dome would be removed, and the humans would storm St. Pigeonations, slaughtering any birds inside. So. Cool.
Sakuya is confronted with the suspicion that the only two birds in a position to kill and distribute Hiyoko and her corpse would be his half-brother Yuuya and the doctor he respects, Shuu Iwamine. Though he refuses to believe they could be a part of such a devious plot (well, that Shuu could be a part of it; he still thinks Yuuya is a dastardly mongrel at this point) he accepts it when Ryouta reminds him that it was Sakuya who told him to remove all biases and seek out only the facts.
Sakuya and Ryouta direct their eyes to the infirmary, deciding it would be the best place to find evidence of Yuuya and the Doctor's involvement. Sakuya stays behind to keep the doctor distracted (the doctor completely insults him when Sakuya tries to thank him for saving his father's life, so that's cool, thanks Shuu) while Ryouta heads to the medical wing, only to be knocked out when he searches the doctor's desk for evidence. He wakes up to see the medical records he had been inspecting have disappeared, but luckily, he finds a piece of evidence the culprit who attacked him overlooked – Hiyoko's student ID card, covered in blood. When Sakuya finds out about this, well, there's only one thing to do: boldly confront the murderous doctor who makes him feel awful about his life's purpose! All by himself! Alone!
So yeah, unsurprisingly, Shuu mocks Sakuya and then prepares to kill him.
He tells Sakuya all about how he and Yuuya didn't kill Hiyoko, but they were certainly the ones who chopped her up and sent her around the school. He tops it off by calling Sakuya a... mongrel. A filthy, low-born mongrel. And then Sakuya catches a glimpse of silver as it slices through the air, and as the knife swings down--
Yuuya is in front of him. The brother Sakuya had been abusing all his life had appeared from nowhere, dived in front of Sakuya, and protected him from being killed. Blood is dripping down his body from the wound Shuu inflicted on him, but he's guarding Sakuya with his life, demanding that the doctor stop trying to hurt his little brother. After a brief scene of Shuu being a villain and a jerk who escapes into the night with his spooky scarecrow, Yuuya and Sakuya soon end up alone.
And Yuuya begins to confess.
Yes, he admits that he and Shuu were the one who sent Hiyoko's body around the school, but he also backs up the claim that the two of them didn't kill her. He claims the body was discovered the way it was for a reason; if Hiyoko was killed in the morning, then there would be more time for humans to gather outside the dome, more humans to storm the school once it was open again. It was part of the deal he had made with Shuu. If Yuuya did what the doctor asked of him, Shuu promised to never tell other people a secret about Sakuya's lineage. (Incidentally, it was a promise that Shuu got out of with nasty loopholes and by generally being terrible, but every story has a villain.)
The secret about Sakuya's heritage was a secret that, up until Shuu figured it out, was only known to Yuuya. When Yuuya was a child, he was told he would have a new father. One with money, one with a beautiful mansion. But the new father didn't want Yuuya's little brother; he would only accept Yuuya if his younger brother's egg was destroyed. Yuuya knew his mother was sad, he knew she didn't want to get rid of him... so he told his mother he would take his little brother's egg away instead, so she didn't have to kill her own son. Yuuya promised his mother he would kill his little brother, throw him away and live alone with his new father, like she and Mr. Le Bel wanted.
But Yuuya didn't throw his brother away. He hid him. He hid him away in the house and spoke to him every day, watching him grow bigger and bigger, looking over the egg of his little brother like a knight guarding royalty. After all, the egg was Yuuya's brother, man. He didn't want to lose him. So he waited until his mother laid a new egg, one with the new father's child inside.
And he swapped the eggs.
Yuuya took his little brother out of the hiding place in the mansion and switched him with the new egg. He put Sakuya's egg into the new nest and he took the new father's egg somewhere far away... and he smashed it. He knew his new father hated him for being born from another father. Yuuya didn't want his brother to be hated, or to be killed. He wanted his brother to have a good life, to be loved and be given expensive clothes and treated the way he should be treated. He wanted his little brother to have a good life. To live on in luxury, and be loved, instead of killed like the Le Bel father wanted.
All Yuuya wanted was for his little brother to have a good life, even if he had to sacrifice another child to make that wish come true.
After telling Sakuya all of this... he couldn't talk anymore. Sakuya cried his brother's name and held Yuuya's body until he finally left the infirmary.
Sakuya fell into despair after this. His brother had died in his arms after confessing the cross he had to bear his entire life whilst simultaneously denying Sakuya his lineage. Sakuya becomes unresponsive, unhelpful, and Ryouta has to play detective by himself for a while. As Sakuya comes to terms with his brother's death and his loss of the Le Bel name, he begins to question who he is, and what his purpose is. Slowly he loses his prejudices and begins to become a much, much stronger person, and after some time, he's ready to help Ryouta save the school. After all, it doesn't matter if he's a Le Bel or not – Sakuya himself never walks away from a friend in need!
As the plot progresses, Sakuya goes downstairs, rescues a bunch of people and we learn the motivations behind the crimes that happened in St. Pigeonation's at the start of the second term. Due to some emotional and laborious backstory, Shuu had made a promise to Ryouta that he would make sure birds and humans would no longer fight; and to do this, he would infect Ryouta with a terrible disease he had engineered through inhumane experiments called the Charon Virus, a virus which was so fatal it killed all humans the infected bird made contact with. Humans like, oh, I don't know, a young girl who was a Human Representative to a school full of pigeons. Shuu declared that the most wonderful way to fulfil his promise to Ryouta would be to infect him with the virus that would wipe out mankind and then set him free on humanity, which, well, would stop all that dang fighting. Basically, Shuu's a monster.
When Sakuya's dumb puffy-feathered teacher Kazuaki goes crazy and shoots Shuu, Sakuya is far more concerned that Kazuaki has a gun than the fact that he shot the doctor. … because at this point, Shuu had it coming, because seriously, fuck that guy. Some more personal laborious drama happens in which Kazuaki threatens to cut out Ryouta's liver while in a yandere trance, but it has nothing to do with Sakuya, so who cares. After the melodrama subsides, the cast prepares to leave the school through the Super Secret Medical Facility Passage, only to be stopped by Ryouta, who tells them they'll stay behind. Sakuya will have no part in this, and tells Ryouta to stop being foolish and stay with him, but Ryouta insists. If he doesn't stay down in the medical facility and freeze himself while waiting for medical procedures to advance, the humans up above him will all die. Ryouta needs to stay behind until doctors are able to remove the disease from his body.
Sakuya tells Ryouta that a Le Bel... no, that he himself never goes back on his word! He promises that no matter how long it takes, he will come back for him. But in return for this promise, Ryouta has to make one in return... that one day, the two of them will leave the school together, alive. Ryouta's parting words to Sakuya are a promise that he'll wait for him.
The game ends with Sakuya being INCREDIBLY UNSURE about Kazuaki's promise to Shuu that he'll never shoot him again, and a tearful reunion between two brothers because hey! It turns out Yuuya actually survived the poisoning. And by tearful reunion I mean Sakuya called Yuuya both scum and a villain for lying about his death and demanded back the time he wasted mourning him.
(Yuuya, of course, was flattered over his cute little brother mourning him.)
personality: From his birth, a single message has been beaten into Sakuya's skull – that he's different from everyone else, that his blood is pure while the blood of everyone else is tainted. The ties to his family mean everything to him. He's been taught that he has been chosen by a higher force to be better than everyone else, that the lower-class citizens beneath him are merely mongrels with filthy lives. Those beneath Sakuya are treated by his father as worthless insects that could easily be wiped out if Le Bel family lacked compassion. Sakuya lives his life knowing somewhere in the back of his mind that he must never bond with the scum that clings to the same earth he proudly resides on; that his only purpose for living is to bring honour to his name.
This is the reason Sakuya is the way he is. The first time we meet Sakuya in-game, he acts about as stuck-up and haughty as the game's token tsundere really ought to. He's incredibly snooty and has a superiority complex so large it rivals the size of the sun, and his close-minded intolerance goes into pretty offensive territory more than once. If he doesn't open his mouth and just stands there with great posture and a beautiful coat of feathers, he has an air of elegance and charm, sure... but someone who doesn't know he's a rich noble would think he's just acting like a strait-laced aristocrat for the sake of it. He's very melodramatic. Without prior knowledge of Sakuya's family and the pressure he's under, there's no way someone meeting him for the first time would take his attitude seriously.
Over the course of the game, Sakuya acts very selfish, very mean, often complaining about little things that really don't need to be complained about. Sakuya often throws tantrums and acts angrier than he really is, because after all, a Le Bel is entitled to being spoiled and catered to, and how dare these foolish low-class mongrels try to make him act like he's a part of their world with things like... like “walking in the sun” or “going on school camps”! The honour of his family comes first and foremost to him, and he has no problem calling people useless and inferior for not being a Le Bel. Sakuya will look down his nose at you and recoil in disgust if you have any pride in your family name, because after all, compared to a Le Bel, you're probably still a commoner. His family name is what drives him to do the things he does, in fact, and truth be told, the childish self-centred attitude is largely an exaggeration of his real feelings; he's driven by the fact that people born and raised by his father need to act a certain way.
As mentioned in the history section above, during his path, we find that though Sakuya is almost as musically talented as he isstupid rich, he is far too scared of his father to follow his dreams of becoming a musician. Unless someone gives him a forceful push. Mr. Le Bel taught Sakuya that musicians are not nobles, they are peasants; only a fool would create something when others beneath him could create that same music for him, after all. His fear of his father and the desire to bring honour to his family is the reason why he acts like such a prejudiced bigot, and if someone isn't helping him break free of those shackles, it's incredibly likely Sakuya will spend his life doing anything he can to make sure everyone knows how great the Le Bel family is and... nothing else. That's all he would do. As he is now, he lives a very strict lifestyle, and in both paths of the game that focus on him the only way to break free of that is to cut ties with his family. Otherwise, he'll never really live; he'll just live for his father's pride.
In Bad Boy's Love/Hurtful Boyfriend, Sakuya's nature actually gets a lot deeper. When a disaster strikes the school and a girl's body turns up dead, Sakuya is one of the few people to actually care. Most of the birds in St. Pigeonations just thought a dismembered human was gross, but as it was only a dumb human instead of a bird, they didn't really react. Sakuya, however, did all he could to investigate what went down, and acted like a true leader.
When things get tough, Sakuya has been proven to be a very competent person, which honestly wouldn't suit his image as a stuck-up useless pretty boy at all. He takes charge of situations and escapes high risks with a calculating decision, and he leads those he feels in charge of head first into danger if it means getting one step closer to escaping the trouble they're in. While everyone else is in a state of panic, Sakuya keeps a cool head, asking questions that need to be asked and securing personal safety for him and his companions. It turns out this little dove is actually reliable as hell.
He's also quite intelligent, being able to look ahead of situations and decide what the best thing to do would be. He's seen to act on impulse, but it's usually in a way in which he does something difficult that other people are too afraid to do. During Hurtful, Sakuya dictates a lot of personal mantras that give his character depth; while in the main game he would complain about how a Le Bel wouldn't interact with stupid commoners, in Hurtful, Sakuya would say a Le Bel never forgets to honour someone who helps him and other such declarations that prove he's a pretty considerate guy to other people's feelings. You know, when he doesn't have to act like a douchebird.
During Hurtful, Sakuya's brother, Yuuya, is attacked in the same method that killed the principal only a few hours earlier. On his death bed, Yuuya confesses the story about how he switched the eggs and explains how Sakuya isn't really a Le Bel, and of course, Sakuya is devestated. But instead of crying over his lost heritage (though it very obviously dwells on his mind throughout this portion of the game), Sakuya mourns Yuuya, even though up until this point he had been treating him like complete dirt. There's a lot of evidence in game that Sakuya, after dealing with foundation-shaking blows that turn his life upside down, can still recover and do what he needs to do. He seems to have good control over his emotions when it's necessary to act level-headed, because after silently dwelling over the things Yuuya told him, he's ready to be the hero again.
Hurtful Boyfriend (and to a lesser extent, the ending of his path) shows that Sakuya has a lot of potential to be a man instead of a boy and gain some real confidence and sense of self once he gets over his hangups with his family. By the end of Hurtful, Sakuya is probably the most mature character out of all of them, acting as the straightman to his stupid teachers whom throw every sarcastic word they know at each other. By the end of his relationship path, Sakuya runs away to become the musician he's always wanted to be. So, though he's an immature, bigoted, offensive asshole who drives everyone insane and gets on his nerves, deep down he's a hero with a heart of gold who can grow up and be the adult if someone needs to be. And that is why he is the best bird, like, ever.
abilities/powers: Besides the obnoxious ego and general lunacy that is his personality, Sakuya's exceptionally skilled at piano (despite being, you know, a bird) and makes a pretty wonderful leader. That's it, though.
first person sample: one and two!
third person sample: Tap, tap, tap.
There was a certain rhythm to the footsteps pacing back and forth at the front of the classroom. The noise almost seemed to have a sense of pride, as if the owner of those footsteps carried himself with such high esteem that he put thought into every little thing he did. The owner must surely choreograph his footsteps to be firm and strong, to announce his presence to any filthy peasant nearby, to issue a silent order to make way for the Le Bel that graced these halls with his fine person.
The man behind those footsteps stopped his rhythmic pacing and slammed a hand against the teacher's desk, paying no mind to the mathematician sleeping in the chair behind it who jumped awake with a startled 'oh!'.
“I,” stated the man, with a sweeping gaze across the students who sat boredly amongst themselves in front of him, “am Sakuya Le Bel Shirogane. In an act of intensely profound compassion, I have opted to rise to the task of becoming the President of this class full of genetic throwbacks.” He paused for a moment, expecting some kind of reaction, but none came. Sakuya decided to assume those degenerates he happened to be speaking to were merely stunned by his display of graceful generosity and allowed himself a mental pat on the back.
“Do not feel that by doing this, I am lowering myself to your level. I am not acting as a 'representative' of this class; I am not inflicting myself with the grievous wound that would imply I am the best person to embody the spirit of this classroom. No. The spirit of this classroom is one of illbred ruffians with little to no culture or common decency. I, myself, am merely above the rest of you, and have chosen to enforce that fact by rising to the highest rank available.”
Another silence. As Sakuya's eyes sweeped the room, he waited for someone to speak, but no argument to his sudden assertion came. His fellow students were no doubt aware that should they stand up against the Le Bel, he would jump down their throat and bark racist remarks about their families and insist they had no position to speak back to him. It was just easier to let him do what he wanted.
“Good!” He clapped his hands together, and offered a bright yet patronizing smile to those before him. “It is a Le Bel's duty to understand as much about the world of commoners as they can. I, like Le Bels before me, will rise to a position of power and serenity once I reach adulthood; surely in just a few short years, I, unlike the rest of you, will be climbing the official ranks in the government branch that will lead me to becoming the sole ruler of this pathetic country. You feral buffoons should be honoured,” he wagged a finger at the class, “that I'm acting as primary caretaker to the lot of you. Consider this a preview of the future Prime Minister's reign! When you numbskulls are old and working your jobs as waitresses and servants, you will be able to look fondly back at this one moment of worth in your life and think – I was there. I was one of the lucky few who was witness to Sakuya Le Bel's rise in power. I, for a moment, managed to see a glimpse of power.”
More silence. Wait, was this the end of his speech? The way Sakuya stared expectantly at the crowd made a few people snap out of their reverie and awkwardly clap for the sake of being polite, but really, nobody had much of a clue what they were supposed to be doing. Sakuya bowed and made his way back to his seat, and Kazuaki slowly wobbled to the front of the class and began writing math problems on the blackboard, as if nothing had happened.
As if, you know. Sakuya hadn't interrupted the entire class just to make his declamation. When they really should have been doing calculus as planned. This was such a terrible math lesson.
case no: Random is fine!
name: deino
are you over 18?: yes!
personal dw: deinonychuss
email/msn/aim/plurk/etc: plurk; democratomodon
characters in abax: N/A!
in character information.
series: Hatoful Boyfriend
name: Sakuya Le Bel Shirogane
age: 17!
sex: Male!
race: Fantail Dove. (He's being humanized, though.)
weight: 0.75 pounds as a dove! 130 pounds as a human!
height: 10 inches as a dove! 5'6 as a human!
canon point: Pre-Hurtful, the start of Term 2.
previous cr: N/A!
history: In order to explain Sakuya's personal history, first I should explain his world.
Hatoful Boyfriend is set on earth, with canon events set around the year 2188. In modern times, when birds were still beasts kept merely as pets and decoration, a virus named A(H5N1) appeared. The virus didn't seem to pose much of a threat; at first it merely infected birds, but like diseases before it, it soon mutated and spread to humans. A(H5N1)'s mutated strain was highly infectious and had an extremely high mortality rate. It became clear that it posed a threat to the survival of the human species.
With the power of awesome thinking and ingenuity, the greatest minds of humanity came up with a plan. “Kill all birds!” pretty much sums it up. Engineering an even more powerful virus, the humans prepared to cull birds in order to prevent a pandemic, feeling it was their only choice at the time. Naturally, the new virus didn't work – infected birds didn't die. Their brains grew in size and power. Doves, in particular, were the first to freakin' speak, but soon quails, puffins and many others began to climb the social ladder. (In case you're interested, the prime minister of Japan is a shoebill.)
Thanks to this forced evolution, birds were not as easily preyed upon as they once were. Their predators, no doubt, freaked out when their dinner started yelling at them to let them go. This was bad news for the humans. A(H5N1) spread more rapidly than ever, and with the humans having failed at their only plan of defence, most died out. At the time of Hatoful Boyfriend's setting, only a handful of humans remain, but their coexistance with birds is a relatively peaceful one... though this was not always the case.
In the past, large conflicts cropped up between humans and birds. A human/bird war, for the sake of the earth! Even now, there are groups of extremist humans destroying bird orphanages and torching bird schools, under the guise of a Human Liberation front. Earth in 2188 is rife with tension! There are two political parties, the Dove Party and the Hawk Party, who work to resolve the conflicts between humans and birds.
The Dove Party's goal is to ensure peace and harmony between the remaining humans and birds – they find no reason to deny a tranquil coexistence. The Dove Party also seems to have been involved with an extremely prestigious school, St. Pigeonations, a school with the goal of encouraging bird and human interaction. St. Pigeonations is pretty much the Best of the Best when it comes to education, and it's no wonder Sakuya from the esteemed Le Bel family was sent to study there.
The Hawk Party, however, thinks it would be far better to wipe the rest of those nasty humans out and let birds rule over earth as they always should. They've been slowly chipping away at Pigeonation's “human coexistence” system from the inside, perverting the olive branch into a place of medical experiments and biological warfare in secret.
And this is the place where the once happy school life of Sakuya Le Bel took place. Thankfully, Sakuya's personal history is a lot less dependant on humanity's potential destruction, so let's read on!
Sakuya has been raised ever since he was a child to believe in his own superiority. His father, a man whom he respects very much, taught him since he was young that he was better than “those peasants”. Mr. Le Bel encourages Sakuya to remain conscious of the fact that he, as a Le Bel, is a better person than... anyone else. Ever. “We are the chosen ones”, Mr. Le Bel teaches his son. “It is our duty to guide the foolish common folk.”
His father pushed this lesson onto Sakuya for every day of his life, with growing aggression. He would talk about how the lowerclass, common folk are mere ferals, crawling in the mud with no worth to their lives. Sakuya is taught that were it not for the Le Bel compassion, those disgusting commoners would surely die as miserably as they lived. Their world is not Sakuya's, and Sakuya must never, under any circumstances, interact with them.
With this being the theme of his childhood, Sakuya is duly surprised when his father approaches him, telling him he's sending him far away from his home nation of France – so he can study at St. Pigeonation's in Japan, and bring as much glory to the Le Bel family as is possible. His confusion fades soon, however, as it all makes sense when his father states that a teacher there, Dr. Isa Souma (aka Shuu Iwamine), is in residence at the institution he will be attending.
Dr. Shuu Iwamine! What a bird. If it weren't for said doctor, the Le Bel family wouldn't be as esteemed or influential as it is today. Doctor Iwamine is a well-mannered, polite, potentially murderous professional whose internationally acclaimed research and medicine saved Sakuya's father's life. He is, undoubtedly, the only bird who Sakuya had ever been able to respect, besides his own father. Shuu thinks he's boring and doesn't care, but nevertheless, Sakuya owes a great deal of gratitude to the man who saved his life, and Shuu is the only man Sakuya doesn't verbally abuse during his stay in St. Pigeonation's.
When Sakuya transfers in his second year of highschool, life is pretty boring. The entire first half of Hatoful Boyfriend is, after all, your typical dating sim. Sakuya, being from the Le Bel family, calls pretty much anyone who tries to talk to him a filthy mongrel – especially his half brother, Yuuya. His path in the game, should you choose to go down it, is about how he loves music but his father finds the act of creation a game for peasants, and thus Sakuya feels unable to pursue his goal of being a badass musician. But you, the main character, give him strength to stand up to his father and all that jazz! He moves on! And has a happy life! But unfortunately, these events will never happen, as Sakuya is being apped from the alpha canon line.
In Bad Boy's Love (aka Hurtful Boyfriend), the game's “main” storyline so to speak, Hatoful Boyfriend gets much, much darker. In the student's second term, the main character, Hiyoko, doesn't come to school one day. She misses a lesson on birdkind's history, and Ryouta, her best friend, begins to worry about her. With good reason! It turns out that the human representative of St. Pigeonation's has been murdered and dismembered, the girl's bodyparts being distributed to every class via the day's printboxes. Normal dating game stuff.
A freak out ensues and an alarm soon sounds around the school, ushering everyone into the gymnasium, at which point the principal issues a campus-wide lockdown under the guise of a natural disaster. Sakuya, however, has none of it, and is the one member of the school who demands to know what's really going on – but the principal doesn't answer him, of course. Sakuya spearheads an investigation along with another classmate, Ryouta, and they discover an iron dome has been installed around the school, barring anyone from leaving. They decide to investigate further, talking to the people in charge in order to start finding out what's really going on.
One of the first things they do is try to see the principal, but on the way, they're accosted by a creepy metal scarecrow known as Labor 9. It attacks them, they escape, it's scary, etc etc. Several times the creature attacks them, seperating them or scattering their plans, but because Sakuya and Ryouta are the most badass pigeons to ever exist in the world, they manage to survive the attacks and regroup to continue their investigation. When Sakuya and Ryouta eventually make it to the Principal's office, they find said Principal has been killed thanks to some awesome party-time fun happy nerve toxin. The notice that played informing the students of a natural disaster was a video recording of a disaster drill, a fact which confirms to Sakuya and Ryouta that some serious shit is going down and they need to unearth the facts.
Some more drama happens – some birds are shot, Labor 9 continues to attack them, a possibly insane bird that thinks he's an angel fallen from heaven jumps through a window (but that's business as usual) – and long story short, Sakuya and Ryouta discover the truth behind what's going on in the school. The student who died, Sakuya and Ryouta's human friend who was dismembered and distributed to all classes on school grounds, was a “Human Representative” to St. Pigeonations. Part of her role as representative was as follows: if she were to die within school property, the surviving humans would find her death enough justification for violent retribution against birdkind. Should the girl die, the entire school would be covered with the dome Sakuya and Ryouta have been investigating, and over the following twelve hours, humans armed to the teeth would gather outside it. Once the twelve hours were up, the dome would be removed, and the humans would storm St. Pigeonations, slaughtering any birds inside. So. Cool.
Sakuya is confronted with the suspicion that the only two birds in a position to kill and distribute Hiyoko and her corpse would be his half-brother Yuuya and the doctor he respects, Shuu Iwamine. Though he refuses to believe they could be a part of such a devious plot (well, that Shuu could be a part of it; he still thinks Yuuya is a dastardly mongrel at this point) he accepts it when Ryouta reminds him that it was Sakuya who told him to remove all biases and seek out only the facts.
Sakuya and Ryouta direct their eyes to the infirmary, deciding it would be the best place to find evidence of Yuuya and the Doctor's involvement. Sakuya stays behind to keep the doctor distracted (the doctor completely insults him when Sakuya tries to thank him for saving his father's life, so that's cool, thanks Shuu) while Ryouta heads to the medical wing, only to be knocked out when he searches the doctor's desk for evidence. He wakes up to see the medical records he had been inspecting have disappeared, but luckily, he finds a piece of evidence the culprit who attacked him overlooked – Hiyoko's student ID card, covered in blood. When Sakuya finds out about this, well, there's only one thing to do: boldly confront the murderous doctor who makes him feel awful about his life's purpose! All by himself! Alone!
So yeah, unsurprisingly, Shuu mocks Sakuya and then prepares to kill him.
He tells Sakuya all about how he and Yuuya didn't kill Hiyoko, but they were certainly the ones who chopped her up and sent her around the school. He tops it off by calling Sakuya a... mongrel. A filthy, low-born mongrel. And then Sakuya catches a glimpse of silver as it slices through the air, and as the knife swings down--
Yuuya is in front of him. The brother Sakuya had been abusing all his life had appeared from nowhere, dived in front of Sakuya, and protected him from being killed. Blood is dripping down his body from the wound Shuu inflicted on him, but he's guarding Sakuya with his life, demanding that the doctor stop trying to hurt his little brother. After a brief scene of Shuu being a villain and a jerk who escapes into the night with his spooky scarecrow, Yuuya and Sakuya soon end up alone.
And Yuuya begins to confess.
Yes, he admits that he and Shuu were the one who sent Hiyoko's body around the school, but he also backs up the claim that the two of them didn't kill her. He claims the body was discovered the way it was for a reason; if Hiyoko was killed in the morning, then there would be more time for humans to gather outside the dome, more humans to storm the school once it was open again. It was part of the deal he had made with Shuu. If Yuuya did what the doctor asked of him, Shuu promised to never tell other people a secret about Sakuya's lineage. (Incidentally, it was a promise that Shuu got out of with nasty loopholes and by generally being terrible, but every story has a villain.)
The secret about Sakuya's heritage was a secret that, up until Shuu figured it out, was only known to Yuuya. When Yuuya was a child, he was told he would have a new father. One with money, one with a beautiful mansion. But the new father didn't want Yuuya's little brother; he would only accept Yuuya if his younger brother's egg was destroyed. Yuuya knew his mother was sad, he knew she didn't want to get rid of him... so he told his mother he would take his little brother's egg away instead, so she didn't have to kill her own son. Yuuya promised his mother he would kill his little brother, throw him away and live alone with his new father, like she and Mr. Le Bel wanted.
But Yuuya didn't throw his brother away. He hid him. He hid him away in the house and spoke to him every day, watching him grow bigger and bigger, looking over the egg of his little brother like a knight guarding royalty. After all, the egg was Yuuya's brother, man. He didn't want to lose him. So he waited until his mother laid a new egg, one with the new father's child inside.
And he swapped the eggs.
Yuuya took his little brother out of the hiding place in the mansion and switched him with the new egg. He put Sakuya's egg into the new nest and he took the new father's egg somewhere far away... and he smashed it. He knew his new father hated him for being born from another father. Yuuya didn't want his brother to be hated, or to be killed. He wanted his brother to have a good life, to be loved and be given expensive clothes and treated the way he should be treated. He wanted his little brother to have a good life. To live on in luxury, and be loved, instead of killed like the Le Bel father wanted.
All Yuuya wanted was for his little brother to have a good life, even if he had to sacrifice another child to make that wish come true.
After telling Sakuya all of this... he couldn't talk anymore. Sakuya cried his brother's name and held Yuuya's body until he finally left the infirmary.
Sakuya fell into despair after this. His brother had died in his arms after confessing the cross he had to bear his entire life whilst simultaneously denying Sakuya his lineage. Sakuya becomes unresponsive, unhelpful, and Ryouta has to play detective by himself for a while. As Sakuya comes to terms with his brother's death and his loss of the Le Bel name, he begins to question who he is, and what his purpose is. Slowly he loses his prejudices and begins to become a much, much stronger person, and after some time, he's ready to help Ryouta save the school. After all, it doesn't matter if he's a Le Bel or not – Sakuya himself never walks away from a friend in need!
As the plot progresses, Sakuya goes downstairs, rescues a bunch of people and we learn the motivations behind the crimes that happened in St. Pigeonation's at the start of the second term. Due to some emotional and laborious backstory, Shuu had made a promise to Ryouta that he would make sure birds and humans would no longer fight; and to do this, he would infect Ryouta with a terrible disease he had engineered through inhumane experiments called the Charon Virus, a virus which was so fatal it killed all humans the infected bird made contact with. Humans like, oh, I don't know, a young girl who was a Human Representative to a school full of pigeons. Shuu declared that the most wonderful way to fulfil his promise to Ryouta would be to infect him with the virus that would wipe out mankind and then set him free on humanity, which, well, would stop all that dang fighting. Basically, Shuu's a monster.
When Sakuya's dumb puffy-feathered teacher Kazuaki goes crazy and shoots Shuu, Sakuya is far more concerned that Kazuaki has a gun than the fact that he shot the doctor. … because at this point, Shuu had it coming, because seriously, fuck that guy. Some more personal laborious drama happens in which Kazuaki threatens to cut out Ryouta's liver while in a yandere trance, but it has nothing to do with Sakuya, so who cares. After the melodrama subsides, the cast prepares to leave the school through the Super Secret Medical Facility Passage, only to be stopped by Ryouta, who tells them they'll stay behind. Sakuya will have no part in this, and tells Ryouta to stop being foolish and stay with him, but Ryouta insists. If he doesn't stay down in the medical facility and freeze himself while waiting for medical procedures to advance, the humans up above him will all die. Ryouta needs to stay behind until doctors are able to remove the disease from his body.
Sakuya tells Ryouta that a Le Bel... no, that he himself never goes back on his word! He promises that no matter how long it takes, he will come back for him. But in return for this promise, Ryouta has to make one in return... that one day, the two of them will leave the school together, alive. Ryouta's parting words to Sakuya are a promise that he'll wait for him.
The game ends with Sakuya being INCREDIBLY UNSURE about Kazuaki's promise to Shuu that he'll never shoot him again, and a tearful reunion between two brothers because hey! It turns out Yuuya actually survived the poisoning. And by tearful reunion I mean Sakuya called Yuuya both scum and a villain for lying about his death and demanded back the time he wasted mourning him.
(Yuuya, of course, was flattered over his cute little brother mourning him.)
personality: From his birth, a single message has been beaten into Sakuya's skull – that he's different from everyone else, that his blood is pure while the blood of everyone else is tainted. The ties to his family mean everything to him. He's been taught that he has been chosen by a higher force to be better than everyone else, that the lower-class citizens beneath him are merely mongrels with filthy lives. Those beneath Sakuya are treated by his father as worthless insects that could easily be wiped out if Le Bel family lacked compassion. Sakuya lives his life knowing somewhere in the back of his mind that he must never bond with the scum that clings to the same earth he proudly resides on; that his only purpose for living is to bring honour to his name.
This is the reason Sakuya is the way he is. The first time we meet Sakuya in-game, he acts about as stuck-up and haughty as the game's token tsundere really ought to. He's incredibly snooty and has a superiority complex so large it rivals the size of the sun, and his close-minded intolerance goes into pretty offensive territory more than once. If he doesn't open his mouth and just stands there with great posture and a beautiful coat of feathers, he has an air of elegance and charm, sure... but someone who doesn't know he's a rich noble would think he's just acting like a strait-laced aristocrat for the sake of it. He's very melodramatic. Without prior knowledge of Sakuya's family and the pressure he's under, there's no way someone meeting him for the first time would take his attitude seriously.
Over the course of the game, Sakuya acts very selfish, very mean, often complaining about little things that really don't need to be complained about. Sakuya often throws tantrums and acts angrier than he really is, because after all, a Le Bel is entitled to being spoiled and catered to, and how dare these foolish low-class mongrels try to make him act like he's a part of their world with things like... like “walking in the sun” or “going on school camps”! The honour of his family comes first and foremost to him, and he has no problem calling people useless and inferior for not being a Le Bel. Sakuya will look down his nose at you and recoil in disgust if you have any pride in your family name, because after all, compared to a Le Bel, you're probably still a commoner. His family name is what drives him to do the things he does, in fact, and truth be told, the childish self-centred attitude is largely an exaggeration of his real feelings; he's driven by the fact that people born and raised by his father need to act a certain way.
As mentioned in the history section above, during his path, we find that though Sakuya is almost as musically talented as he is
In Bad Boy's Love/Hurtful Boyfriend, Sakuya's nature actually gets a lot deeper. When a disaster strikes the school and a girl's body turns up dead, Sakuya is one of the few people to actually care. Most of the birds in St. Pigeonations just thought a dismembered human was gross, but as it was only a dumb human instead of a bird, they didn't really react. Sakuya, however, did all he could to investigate what went down, and acted like a true leader.
When things get tough, Sakuya has been proven to be a very competent person, which honestly wouldn't suit his image as a stuck-up useless pretty boy at all. He takes charge of situations and escapes high risks with a calculating decision, and he leads those he feels in charge of head first into danger if it means getting one step closer to escaping the trouble they're in. While everyone else is in a state of panic, Sakuya keeps a cool head, asking questions that need to be asked and securing personal safety for him and his companions. It turns out this little dove is actually reliable as hell.
He's also quite intelligent, being able to look ahead of situations and decide what the best thing to do would be. He's seen to act on impulse, but it's usually in a way in which he does something difficult that other people are too afraid to do. During Hurtful, Sakuya dictates a lot of personal mantras that give his character depth; while in the main game he would complain about how a Le Bel wouldn't interact with stupid commoners, in Hurtful, Sakuya would say a Le Bel never forgets to honour someone who helps him and other such declarations that prove he's a pretty considerate guy to other people's feelings. You know, when he doesn't have to act like a douchebird.
During Hurtful, Sakuya's brother, Yuuya, is attacked in the same method that killed the principal only a few hours earlier. On his death bed, Yuuya confesses the story about how he switched the eggs and explains how Sakuya isn't really a Le Bel, and of course, Sakuya is devestated. But instead of crying over his lost heritage (though it very obviously dwells on his mind throughout this portion of the game), Sakuya mourns Yuuya, even though up until this point he had been treating him like complete dirt. There's a lot of evidence in game that Sakuya, after dealing with foundation-shaking blows that turn his life upside down, can still recover and do what he needs to do. He seems to have good control over his emotions when it's necessary to act level-headed, because after silently dwelling over the things Yuuya told him, he's ready to be the hero again.
Hurtful Boyfriend (and to a lesser extent, the ending of his path) shows that Sakuya has a lot of potential to be a man instead of a boy and gain some real confidence and sense of self once he gets over his hangups with his family. By the end of Hurtful, Sakuya is probably the most mature character out of all of them, acting as the straightman to his stupid teachers whom throw every sarcastic word they know at each other. By the end of his relationship path, Sakuya runs away to become the musician he's always wanted to be. So, though he's an immature, bigoted, offensive asshole who drives everyone insane and gets on his nerves, deep down he's a hero with a heart of gold who can grow up and be the adult if someone needs to be. And that is why he is the best bird, like, ever.
abilities/powers: Besides the obnoxious ego and general lunacy that is his personality, Sakuya's exceptionally skilled at piano (despite being, you know, a bird) and makes a pretty wonderful leader. That's it, though.
first person sample: one and two!
third person sample: Tap, tap, tap.
There was a certain rhythm to the footsteps pacing back and forth at the front of the classroom. The noise almost seemed to have a sense of pride, as if the owner of those footsteps carried himself with such high esteem that he put thought into every little thing he did. The owner must surely choreograph his footsteps to be firm and strong, to announce his presence to any filthy peasant nearby, to issue a silent order to make way for the Le Bel that graced these halls with his fine person.
The man behind those footsteps stopped his rhythmic pacing and slammed a hand against the teacher's desk, paying no mind to the mathematician sleeping in the chair behind it who jumped awake with a startled 'oh!'.
“I,” stated the man, with a sweeping gaze across the students who sat boredly amongst themselves in front of him, “am Sakuya Le Bel Shirogane. In an act of intensely profound compassion, I have opted to rise to the task of becoming the President of this class full of genetic throwbacks.” He paused for a moment, expecting some kind of reaction, but none came. Sakuya decided to assume those degenerates he happened to be speaking to were merely stunned by his display of graceful generosity and allowed himself a mental pat on the back.
“Do not feel that by doing this, I am lowering myself to your level. I am not acting as a 'representative' of this class; I am not inflicting myself with the grievous wound that would imply I am the best person to embody the spirit of this classroom. No. The spirit of this classroom is one of illbred ruffians with little to no culture or common decency. I, myself, am merely above the rest of you, and have chosen to enforce that fact by rising to the highest rank available.”
Another silence. As Sakuya's eyes sweeped the room, he waited for someone to speak, but no argument to his sudden assertion came. His fellow students were no doubt aware that should they stand up against the Le Bel, he would jump down their throat and bark racist remarks about their families and insist they had no position to speak back to him. It was just easier to let him do what he wanted.
“Good!” He clapped his hands together, and offered a bright yet patronizing smile to those before him. “It is a Le Bel's duty to understand as much about the world of commoners as they can. I, like Le Bels before me, will rise to a position of power and serenity once I reach adulthood; surely in just a few short years, I, unlike the rest of you, will be climbing the official ranks in the government branch that will lead me to becoming the sole ruler of this pathetic country. You feral buffoons should be honoured,” he wagged a finger at the class, “that I'm acting as primary caretaker to the lot of you. Consider this a preview of the future Prime Minister's reign! When you numbskulls are old and working your jobs as waitresses and servants, you will be able to look fondly back at this one moment of worth in your life and think – I was there. I was one of the lucky few who was witness to Sakuya Le Bel's rise in power. I, for a moment, managed to see a glimpse of power.”
More silence. Wait, was this the end of his speech? The way Sakuya stared expectantly at the crowd made a few people snap out of their reverie and awkwardly clap for the sake of being polite, but really, nobody had much of a clue what they were supposed to be doing. Sakuya bowed and made his way back to his seat, and Kazuaki slowly wobbled to the front of the class and began writing math problems on the blackboard, as if nothing had happened.
As if, you know. Sakuya hadn't interrupted the entire class just to make his declamation. When they really should have been doing calculus as planned. This was such a terrible math lesson.
case no: Random is fine!