Xavier Institute app

PLAYER INFORMATION

PLAYER: Love
ARE YOU AT LEAST 16 YEARS OLD?: Over 18
IF UNDER 18 YEARS OLD, PLEASE STATE YOUR AGE: N/A
CONTACT: demonia
CHARACTERS PLAYED: N/A

CHARACTER INFORMATION

NAME: Shizuo Heiwajima
CANON: Durarara!! (light novels)
CANON REFERENCE: Character wiki for reference. Prepare, there's 13 novels of stuff being worked with.
AGE: 25
GENDER: Male
YEAR IN SCHOOL/FACULTY POSITION: Groundskeeper, Off-campus Bodyguard
APPEARANCE: Image reference with a bonus. No particular differences with AU and canon. It could be worth noting that despite his density and being 6'1", he's 154lbs and noted to have a very lithe build and it's not simply an artistic style in the images. He's also said to have a good looking face, having been the one originally scouted before they settled on his brother (who became a famous model and actor afterward.)

PERSONALITY: Shizuo is someone who, ideally, would be and have a quiet and peaceful life. Unfortunately, with his circumstances, physiology and hair-trigger temper, this seemed to be nothing but a dream. It didn't matter if it were a personality disorder or an issue with the adrenal gland and brain, he's grown up seeing his own actions keep that ultimate dream from coming true. Constantly witnessing what he's done, knowing why, Shizuo's spent a large portion of his life accepting that he'd be that kind of disappointment to himself, and others, with having given up of trying to control his anger and strength. It hadn't been until the Saika army (a kind of parasitic mutant that had infected others,) that confessed how they loved Shizuo and his strength that he even started accepting himself and improving how he treated himself and handled others.

From the beginning, however, there was a kind of complex simplicity in how Shizuo acted. Family was one of the most important things, and the most basic of lessons he'd been taught are so highly regarded that they apply under every circumstance even today. That goes from 'treat people as people no matter how they look or what they are,' 'children are completely innocent,' 'you don't hurt girls' to 'you don't cause a disturbance in the library.' He even seemed to take the phrase 'looks can kill' into his adulthood and took other people's glares very personally and did his best to keep his expressions and feelings from showing in his face. His brother, Kasuka, said that because Shizuo is bad with words and doesn't get letters often, he had to accept and treat every letter received properly. Which is why he'd listen to a letter, which asked for him to meet at a location to hear someone's confession, despite having a feeling that it was another trick set up by someone. It's also because of how highly Shizuo regards his family (and other connections, mentioned later,) that talking about his famous brother or assuming it would grant them some sort of advantage over Shizuo was a kind of taboo that always lead to that person being physically punished. Well really, the fact that people think it's okay to even try pisses him off enough that he ends up wanting to at least hit them. If he can help it, Shizuo won't let anyone hurt or inconvenience his brother. Really, he takes it personally when anyone he values as a 'connection' is attacked or hurt in any manner. It's just that 'connection' is a lot more vague than how he sees his family. It tended to include anyone that would treat him as a person, so he didn't care what type of person they were, as long as their actions weren't bad and they didn't do things like manipulate kids into thinking they had to kill someone.

It's taken him a long time to even think he could care about himself, and being as much of a problem, he wouldn't want to inconvenience people by considering them friends. He held everyone at a distance as acquaintances, upperclassmen, coworkers, and people he just happened to know. Very few were considered friends, and even then he felt a little bad because he would gain further connections through people like Celty. He felt glad for being a part of the Dollars because he didn't know the group and they didn't particularly know him, but they let him be a part of the team. Never mind he quit after some people were involved with a kidnapping incident, as he didn't want to be connected to a group that had those kinds of people in it as well. That was a question of morals. However, while still difficult to use words like friends, he is more reluctant to accept people's feelings and that there are connections which are worth something. He might say someone was just an acquaintance that he went to school with, but it's because they got along and the person treated him like a human being that he'll raise hell to find out who hit them with a car. He knows that, while Shinra is a pain in the ass, he's also the closest thing to a friend that he had since he was in school. His coworkers, with whom he spends the most time, he makes sure to never cause too much trouble and has gotten to know the most. As in actually asking and learning things about the newest coworker and having known another since middle school. He's also warm with kids that seem drawn to him, no matter the reason. Because kids are innocent and they shouldn't have to be troubled by whatever other problems are going on. These are the type of relationships that, while he holds a kind of distance with the labels given, also have an incredibly high level of importance. To the point that he won't even cross the line with killing someone unless he's sure that it won't cause trouble for them. It's very possible that this is one of the biggest factors by which he determines his own humanity.

Because until somewhat recently, Shizuo largely thought of himself as a kind of monster. He gave up trying to control his temper, strength and the destruction that came from those two things mixing, a very long time ago. Accepting himself let Shizuo make occasional strides. There's still a temper that could trigger at the drop of a hat (though the reasons are small, they are actual reasons someone would get upset,) but some circumstances could let him hold back a little, or even go to the point that he'd act like it was a big and silly joke so as to not alarm a young child. He's one of the first that's ready to demean the kind of person he is, but even he has managed to recognize these kinds of strides and that he had to continue to make those improvements. From having saved Akane, the fact that he knew it was possible to protect people with his power, he had to make those kinds of improvements.

It's hard to see them when Izaya is involved, however. This was a person that Shizuo instinctively didn't like, and that proved right when Izaya thought it would be fun to goad and quickly attack with a knife. Throughout high school, Izaya had set up a lot of things that would put Shizuo in the center of bloody pranks or a group of people that would want to attack and defeat Shizuo for various reasons. He was already able to suspect that Izaya would be involved, but after they graduated and it was all confirmed, Shizuo took everything that Izaya plotted in Ikebukuro very personal. Not just because he directed trouble and violence to Shizuo, but Izaya was the kind of person that Shizuo despised. He wasn't honest and manipulated people into anything, just to see what would happen. Even if it was dangerous, no matter who it involved; he was no better than a flea. It wasn't even until recently that Shizuo could restrain himself when dealing with Izaya, instead of giving in to blind rage. It was the recent developments and finding out how much of it Izaya was behind (not just getting him arrested under false charges to stay out of the way, but for having a part of Celty going berserk, and a whole bunch of metal beams falling and hitting his co-worker, Vorona,) and getting a phone call from that man that Shizuo took a huge step. He consciously chose to get rid of and kill Izaya, having calmly told him goodbye at the end of the phone call and telling Vorona to shoot him he he continued to stay out of control. He went through fire and everything else with a quieter kind of rage that kept him focused more than usual. Even if it meant losing what little humanity, numbing all sensation and sense, he was ready to kill Izaya and accept whatever may happen to him afterwards. If Vorona hadn't interfered with stabbing and being ready to kill Izaya instead, Shizuo wouldn't have snapped from his senseless focus to tell his junior coworker to not become a murderer. Unfortunately, while able to swallow what had happened before, he knew it would probably happen again if he had seen Izaya again. Because Vorona took such measures to keep him from doing so, and hearing about the Xavier institute again after so long, he wanted to make sure he wouldn't make his junior's efforts a waste.

Without conflicts and constant schemes disturbing the peace of Ikebukuro, Shizuo can otherwise be calm. Being bad with words a lot of time, while he'll say what comes to mind occasionally, he's not exactly the most talkative. Interacting with people on a conversational level is sort of new, outside of a select few that he'd known for a long time. He's the type of person with childish tastes, preferring sweets over spicy foods and alcohol, and would rather watch a running brook or professional martial artists fight in a match rather than gamble or deal with violence at all. Someone who takes all of the morality lessons as strictly as he did when he was a kid, if not more extreme, and determined to let kids enjoy their youth and not have the troubles he got into. He wants a peaceful life where his brother can be happy, he can be accepted and say cheesy lines that he's heard in those superhero movies. That would be his ideal, but he knows he's nowhere near that, or deserving of a completely calm and happy life. As long as everyone else is able to and he could protect that, maybe that'll be enough. There was a long way to go for that.



POWERS/ABILITIES: So this is where I explain things instead of putting the joke "What if Bruce could stay pretty when he hulked out, but wasn't super smart." Shizuo is a prime example of Super Conditioning. Through many, many experiences, his strength, stamina, durability, instincts and agility have gotten to points beyond what normal humans would normally be able to reach. It's important to note that while he has better instincts, the power hasn't developed his intelligence in any way. Through technical terms, he's developed super-strength (somewhere in the Superhuman range), enhanced/super agility, enhanced healing, pain suppression and enhanced durability via dense tissue development. It's unknown as to whether Shizuo's temper is a matter of a personality problem, an adrenal abnormality or part of his power at the time, but as time continued it seemed most likely to be an issue with the adrenal gland and may have been aggravated with his experiences and having not bothered to control his temper for as long as he had.

Due to the power having surfaced at a young age, in conjunction with a very high temper/aggression level, he started with trying to lift refrigerators and having shattered pelvic, spinal and many other types of bones. You could imagine how much that would hurt in the beginning. With the constant exposure to injuries like this throughout the years, it takes a visual change and the actual attack for Shizuo to actually know that it had happened for the most part. It's gotten to the point where he doesn't feel anti-tank pens being stabbed into him, nor several gunshots and barely feels the shock from a stun-gun that had been amped to the point that it could kill an elephant. Which probably says about as much with the durability his body is able to stand. Even when injured or hit with something that should normally keep a person out of commission for several days, if not longer, Shizuo's own recovery time is much faster. It is not regenerative or capable or regrowing limbs or anything like that. When he had been shot multiple times (once in the gut,) and passed out for a while, he had gotten up and walked over to Shinra's place (as he's an underground doctor.) Not only did he think he simply slipped in the rain, until seeing all of his blood, he had Shinra remove all of the bullets (which got stuck in his body) and he left to go after the people that shot him not even a day later. This kind of tolerance doesn't apply to everything. Suffocation is still very possible, as his lungs can't handle carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and smoke much better than any other person (albeit he may have a little longer to escape to fresh air before passing out.)

Related, due to the constant injury to muscle, bone and cartilage, eventually all of it decided to become denser instead of building up and growing stronger that way. After all, there wouldn't have been enough time to build anything before another loss of temper had resulted in torn ligaments and shattered bones in normal circumstances. Having been likened to steel and titanium for the kind of durability they provide, this really does only go towards the bones and muscle. Shizuo's skin, unlike the rest of his body, is rather normal and can be cut or hit in a way that it can tear open. Which is why it had been well known for those that actually knew Shizuo that they could try stabbing or slashing him but wouldn't get any further than 5mm (though most were normal humans or didn't have enhanced strength either.) It doesn't make him immune to bullets, as those will definitely manage to penetrate his body, but the resistance would most likely lead to the slugs getting stuck. Even more, standard quality medical tools aren't effective. Which means that if Shizuo ever needed a doctor, tools of higher alloys are needed and that doctor would actually need to be capable of putting more pressure and skill into what they're doing to keep needles and scalpels from snapping. There are other things aside from high grade medical tools and bullets which could do this. With the right amount of force, even smaller things that were designed to be capable of piercing tank armor, as official descriptions were written, can drive pretty deep into Shizuo's leg and through his hand.

To the more active effects of this conditioning; it was mentioned that from the beginning Shizuo had tried lifting a refrigerator to throw. That was when he was seven years old. As he grew older it went to successfully throwing a teachers desk and tearing traffic signs out from the ground (to the point he took the grounding cement out with it.) Really, it's gotten pretty common for him to pull out road signs and chuck them like spears (which really do spear into buildings and elsewhere in the ground from the end with the actual sign on it.) Currently he's been able to pull out things, like road-side steel bumpers, which would normally require force from multiple locations due to the multiple grounding points and the length alone. Delivery trucks are something he's been able to lift since he was a teenager, and he could easily punt a motorcycle from a road or bank-side to across the river. He's even torn apart one of those trailer trucks from the inside with one hand, as part of saving a girl that had been kidnapped. He could even tear at a metal beam from a building, which was an important part of the structure, after still dealing with the effects of hypoxia and having been hit with fire that was accelerated with gas in the air. One of the most recent and impressive displays of power is probably when a crane had been falling, and to keep it from hitting a coworker, he shoulder checked it back and completely out of the way. It's with this kind of strength that he can make leaps up buildings; having used the strength in his legs and window ledges for grips to scale a skyscraper and avoid some mafia people. With trusting his friends, in order to help someone with their love, Shizuo was even able to throw his friend far into the sky towards Celty despite a lot of injuries and conditions on his body. Strangely enough, there was the rare time that when he punched someone, they went flying down the city block but lost more clothes than they sustained injuries. Unfortunately this isn't all fun and convenience of strength. Shizuo has not been trusted with ceramics and glass for the most part, just because it's so easy to accidentally break such things. It's become a legitimate fear that he'd accidentally hurt someone, as grabbing and barely squeezing a debtor's face caused their jaw to completely unhinge. It wasn't until recent that Shizuo had actually tried to control his outrage and strength, so he's barely gotten the hang of using a deliberate amount in various conditions.

Now there are some things that have developed purely because of Shizuo's experience with having to deal with someone that's schemed and caused troubles ever since they were in high school. While not particularly smart, seeing others and having been manipulated by Izaya himself, Shizuo has learned to recognize when something is going on. While this is more 'I can tell with Izaya is behind this problem that doesn't immediately seem related to him,' overall it has improved his instincts to understand what parts should be noticed and understood. It could even be considered 'hidden truths,' by his own words, but a lot of the time it has turned into a kind of common sense that is odd, but isn't exactly wrong. It's just something people wouldn't see in the same way. But even more, literally chasing after Izaya has taught Shizuo more than dealing with trucks running him over. He's had to be faster, though it hasn't been to super levels. His agility had also developed in a way that's he's forced himself to parkour in a rather crude manner. So he can move along with the inertia of a heavy hit and turn on a dime when chasing after someone, but it's not delicate or trained in a way to be the most effective. It's very much 'do what must be done to rush towards a particular target/goal' without thought of elegance or conservation of inertia and momentum. It's with that kind of method that he could even jump from a fence to the side of a building to run along the side of it and catch up to a cargo truck, like when he tried to save a girl named Akane that looked to be kidnapped. (This is also when he punched and essentially tore a truck in half.)

Which is the biggest thing with how Shizuo has developed through the years. It's rough and pushed through, which has led to crude and unconventional methods. It could be seen as a unique or creative application, but this isn't actual training. It's using one thing he knows he has (strength,) and using that to strong-arm through everything else. It's not smart, and it's definitely not efficient, even if he can continue all of it for literal hours. How much further it can go completely depends on his temperament, willingness for further training and straight up exposure to things that would force his body to reach higher levels.

AU HISTORY: It's important to note before Shizuo's history is written is that, while Ikebukuro is not oblivious or unaffected by human/mutant politics, Ikebukuro's events and society can be incredibly insular at times. Because they've had humans, homo sapiens, capable and having done so much as themselves, and mutants rarely showing up as someone who drew attention, the divide and view on mutants hadn't grown as severe. (For this, while dynamics might seem a touch different, it's nearly identical to the canon history.)

Shizuo is the eldest son of Kichirou and Namiko Heiwajima; both of whom, aside from fitting their names very well, seem to be rather normal. The same went for his little brother, Kasuka. They seemed to lead incredibly normal lives. The parents were loving and didn't let their boys watch anime or read manga that had actual violence or focused on it in any way. Up until Shizuo was seven, they were both known as quiet but good kids that had a good relationship with each other.

When Shizuo was seven, Kasuka ate a pudding cup that Shizuo wrote his name on. Before he knew what was happening, he had picked up the refrigerator and seemed to be ready to throw it at his little better. It was the weight and stress crushing and shattering his pelvic bones, several places of the spine and his shoulder that snapped the boy out of the rage. He was hospitalized for a while, and this is what had prompted his classmate, Shinra, to have a high and unusual fascination with Shizuo's abnormalities. Then again, even at that point Shinra was fascinated with how different and varied mutant physiology could be (especially in someone who Shizuo would later be know as Celty.) It was from this point that his grip had already been stronger than before and his temper worse than ever. Children teasing him would lead to student and teacher desks being thrown, and more bones being broken. As he showed to have less control, Kasuka saw and acted in the opposite manner, becoming more reserved, as if to balance things out with his brother.

Not long after this started, a lady who worked at a bakery grew worried from seeing that Shizuo always had some sort of cast on. She gave both Shizuo and his brother bottles of milk, and the kindness led to this being his first crush. Which is why when he saw a bunch of guys bullying her, not knowing that it was connected to the Awakusu yakuza group, and saw just seeing her distressed and being pushed a little caused one of the first rages that had him attacking people directly. By the time he had regained his senses all of the men were unconscious and beaten pretty badly, but the bakery was a mess and the lady who worked there was not only injured from falling scenery, but she had gotten in trouble for that having happened in the first place. Feeling guilty, he never went by the bakery again. There were mentions of places that could be good for Shizuo 'if' he were a mutant and this wasn't something for a human boy that had something strange happening to him. The Institute had actually managed to contact Shizuo's parents and offered a place for him, but it didn't seem right to take him away from his family to be sent across the other side of the world. Instead they would do their best to guide Shizuo down the right path so that, even if bad things happened, it wasn't because he was purposefully trying to do bad things.

However the problems at school continued, with students and other people in the city goading or picking fights; Which led to more broken bones and him healing from them faster than what would be expected, even for young kids. He slowly, but surely, started to make a name for himself, no matter how much he did not like that. When middle school came around, while his friend Shinra had went to a different school, he eventually met an upperclassmen named Tom Tanaka. He was the first person to talk to and treat Shizuo like a normal person at the school, which eased his temper. Other students thought Tom had some kind of special 'leash on the monster,' but he simply understood that Shizuo didn't like all the fighting he got in, and tried to keep the boy out of it (even when he had gotten in some trouble himself.) Before graduating, it was Tom that had suggested Shizuo dye his hair blond so that everyone would regard Shizuo as a delinquent and actually stay away. Surprisingly enough, it worked! The remainder of his time in middle school had considerably less conflicts and it could even be considered peaceful.

Then high school happened.

Enrolling into Raijin High had him meet up with his old 'friend', Shinra. Shinra felt the need to introduce his only elementary school friend to his only middle school friend, Izaya Orihara. Well, he also introduced Shizuo to Celty, but that didn't lead to so many conflicts. Immediately Shizuo knew he didn't like Izaya, either because of the smile or some other kind of clue that gave him that instinct. After goading Shizuo's temper so he'd attack, while the bleachers were destroyed, Izaya took out a knife and slashed at Shizuo in response. He fled promptly, and Shizuo chased with the need to kick Izaya's ass. After going through Ikebukuro quite a ways, Izaya managed to set it up so that a truck driver would 'accidentally' run over Shizuo. He wasn't expecting Shizuo to be perfectly fine from that. This wasn't a conflict between humans and mutants, (Shizuo never cared about that and Izaya, no matter what he was, only loved humans and humanity as a whole,) but the beginning of a conflict that would last until the current day.

Throughout the years in Raijin there were many, many tricks and set ups planned that had Shizuo stuck in the middle of many of them. Either there were rumors about Shizuo that would attract gangs who wanted territory or a big name for themselves, or seniors being tricked and thinking it was Shizuo behind it all. The teachers would regard the years as the dark days of Raijin, and it was the time that Shizuo earned the nickname 'the automatic fighting doll of Ikebukuro.' There were incidents of oil drums going down stairs, real flesh in the art room, and the infamous Bloody Valentines Day. Aside from Shizuo, the entire male Senior class had received a confession letter asking to meet at a storage shed on school grounds. Regarding the letter properly, despite having a more than obvious clue that this was a trap, Shizuo went because his brother said he didn't get letters often and was bad with words, so he had to see every piece of mail through properly. Naturally, often being at the center of most of Raijin's problems, the seniors blamed Shizuo and accused him of having tricked them. He would've let them be after explaining things, but when they admitted they were going to try and attack him when they graduated, no longer having to worry about school reprimands, Shizuo didn't hold back and fought right back. After all, you should be holding back because fighting was bad, not just because it didn't matter when they didn't have to worry about the school any more. Now while at this point, everyone had a pretty good idea that Izaya was behind all of their problems, it wasn't really until graduation that they had all of this confirmed just as Izaya left for university. He was determined to try and keep Izaya from causing these sorts of problems in Ikebukuro again. Really it'd be great if Izaya stayed out of Ikebukuro period.

The following years had been rough. Shizuo got many jobs, from working in fast food, construction and even as a live action actor for those sentai shows around parks. There was always something that had happened that triggered his temper and got him fired after only a week. If he was lucky. During those short lived jobs, a very unlucky talent scout had tried to pick him up because hey, he was tall and good looking, had a good look and could probably make it far in the entertainment business. With a bad day and the wrong combination of words, not only was the scout beaten up, it was Kasuka who tended to him and apologized for his brother's behavior. Finding Kasuka to be good enough, he was successfully scouted. (Quickly he would become a popular model and actor by the name Hanejima Yuuhei.) At one point there was this really powerful foreigner mutant named Nile that had showed up, but Shizuo managed to defeat him in a fight. It took a while before Shizuo was actually able to stick to a job that Kasuka directed him towards, which was as a bartender, where things worked out very well. The manager was decent at the time, he didn't mind the customers so much and did pretty okay. Well enough that his brother, who was already famous and had earned a lot of money, came to give him boxes of several bartender suits in hopes that it continued. Unfortunately, not long after Izaya had set up evidence that led to the police targeting and having to deal with an enraged Shizuo for arrest. Things were cleared up quickly enough, but it wasn't possible to go back to his job after a conflict came up and he beat his manager up. Surprisingly, soon after he came across Tom again. He worked for a collection agency that collected the debts from people who never returned questionable adult videos, racked up high tabs at host clubs and other kinds of owed money from online dating sights. So, he offered Shizuo a job as his bodyguard. He wouldn't even have to beat everyone up, as Shizuo's reputation and appearance should be enough to scare them into paying. (This is also when Tom gives Shizuo the purple sunglasses, which added to Shizuo's iconic look.)

So things went into a routine. He'd walk around with Tom to collect debts, started to attack Izaya whenever he showed up in Ikebukuro, and dealt with the color gangs that started popping up, who'd foolishly attack Shizuo for hope of gaining a reputation for bringing him down. Every now and then he'd stop at Russia Sushi or get a milkshake when there was a bit of extra time. At some point, Simon (from Russia Sushi) invited Shizuo to an online group called The Dollars, which he liked for just being able to be connected to something.There was a day when he was hanging around in the park, talking to Celty, when a girl (Mika) had ran past that caught Celty's attention. When about to ask the girl something, a teenaged boy (Seiji) jumped out to distract them so Mika could get away. How? By taking a few pens, courtesy of Yagiri Pharm, designed officially to be capable of piercing tank armor, and stabbing Shizuo in the leg and through one of his hands. As it seemed like the boy was confused and didn't have any intention aside from letting the girl get away, he knocked Seiji out and went on his way. A little later there was this email that had a bunch of Dollars members meeting up, but when he headed over to meet Simon about it, it didn't seem like too much of a big deal?

Some months later in February, Shizuo had punched out a reporter that upset him. Not just for goading him into violence, despite how much Shizuo pointed out before that he hated violence, but even his brother had been mentioned. Big taboo, but it was enough that he ended up feeling self-reflective and was able to have Celty listen to him. When he was done and it was mentioned that there had been a slasher around, one who attacked Celty, there was one big ol' goal put into mind. After all, Celty was probably one of the few he would straight-up call a friend. He was determined to kill whomever it was, and when Celty had felt that the Slasher was near (due to a side effect of the incident,) he rides along to where some other acquaintances (Kyohei and his van gang,) were. It wasn't even really that hard, despite the glowing red eyes being a pretty big indicator of the Slasher not being a normal human. All Shizuo did was tear off the van's door and smack the guy down with it. Turned out that it was the reporter from earlier. Weird...

Weird enough that Shizuo went straight to Shinjuku to accuse Izaya from being behind all of the Slasher stuff that had been happening. Not that he got any sort of confession. Just as a fight was about to break out, Celty rode in and interfered to show a chat log that showed the Slasher was still around, that there was more than one, and what was showing up in the chat gave enough of an impression for him to hold off on fighting Izaya to deal with what was happening. By the time they got to the park, there's a whole mess of people with knives and glowing red eyes, but there's other stuff going on. So Shizuo gets to be the cool, cheesy guy by saying 'go on ahead and leave this to me.' Celty gives him these special gloves made from the shadow stuff she controls, drives off to help some girl named Anri. So he's fighting all these people, and Shizuo's not even winded further into the fight despite being cut all over. With how the Slashers/Saika Army people know that getting cut spreads the possession/control, they're super confused on why Shizuo's not affected and he's even more confused as to why they care. Turns out they love him, which turned all of this into a confession done through a mass amount of people, and while he doesn't return the feelings, it makes him start thinking that maybe, juuuust maybe, it'd be okay if he liked himself as well. Especially when there's no way he could lose in this fight when there's so many people that love him around. And for the first time, when all of the people looked to be normal again and didn't have those red eyes, he was able to stop himself and control his actions to avoid hurting what was now a normal, teenaged girl.

A few weeks passed and Shizuo unknowingly helped Anri when the mass amount of Dollars emails kept going by so fast that he couldn't read all of them. He was getting annoyed just as some members of the color gang ran into him and gave a nasty enough look that he beat them up. Anri thanked him, which he kinda brushed off, and he told Celty that he was turning his phone off before walking off. Doesn't seem like too much, but a few days later someone from the Yellow Scarves, the same gang that was chasing Anri before, showed up and shot Shizuo in the leg and gut while saying Masaomi Kida ordered the hit. He woke up a while later, having thought he slipped in the rain until having seen the blood, and walked over to Shinra's apartment for treatment. It's at that time he hears everything that happened and despite having lost a lot of blood for normal people his size, Shizuo left and cut the shooters off at the highway. As they try driving off, Shizuo took one of those exit signs by the pole and swung it so the top half of the car came flying right off. As they kept going, he threw the sign so that it spiked right into the middle of the car and allowed the police to catch them.

In the middle of April (now a year since Izaya seemed to have been showing up or being a part of problems in Ikebukuro,) Shizuo was heading to a bank with Tom to cash in some checks from the debts they had collected that day. When two people jumped out fighting, and one had grabbed the metal suitcase which had those checks, subsequently destroying both the case and checks, Shizuo ripped up a park bench and slammed one person into a tree. The other person? Got smacked hard enough to fly across and into the city (amusingly right in front of Kasuka's car.) Things calm down and get settled, even though some people thought it'd be a good idea to attack Shizuo to feel better, which was kinda stupid on those people's fault. But hey, he and Tom ended up getting an invite from Celty for a hotpot party a few days later. An invite that pretty much everyone but Izaya had gotten, and it was probably the first time Shizuo met a good portion of the cast properly. At this point, he's not aware of the tabloid headlines that were spreading about his brother and an idol named Ruri.

Right as Golden Week started, things got a little weird. While there was someone who picked a fight with him, which is normal, they didn't come rushing at him with a 2x4 or bat. The guy just started talking about a team that he beat up? It was straight-forward and kind of refreshing, with someone just talking openly and admitting they wanted to pick a fight. The guy could've waited for Shizuo to say finish saying something before they started, but what's happened has happened. The guy landed some hits, not that it did much, and it actually took 4 punches from Shizuo before he was knocked out. So he took the guy over to Shinra's and continued on with things. In fact, after bringing this up to Tom the next day, things got weirder as there was a kid just outside the hamburger place staring and smiling as she was staring at Shizuo. Curious, maybe a little disturbed, Shizuo went outside only for the girl to run at him and tell him to die before hitting Shizuo with a stun gun that was modified to be strong enough to take down an elephant. When trying to get away, the girl clung to Shizuo and refused to let go of him. So they went to Shinra with her like that, when she collapsed from a fever after saying her name was Akane. Later they heard properly that Izaya told her that Shizuo was an assassin to kill her grandfather. In a grand display of acting skills, despite a mass of rage, he smiles, laughs and tells Akane that he was friends with Izaya and that this was all a joke. Only to quietly request to Tom that if he gets arrested for murder, to tell their boss to act like he was fired the day before to avoid getting in trouble.

So he goes to Izaya's office and finds a sign that said they moved, and in his rage, went straight to that in not realizing it was a trick. Said trick was 3 corpses of Awakusu yakuza members, and Shizuo showing up just as another member arrived to see him by the corpses. As the yakuza were confused about what had happened, and reasonably so, Shizuo ran away instead of fighting them. In fact, he scaled up a skyscraper before checking the Dollars site for an idea of how to clear things up. Instead he saw some posts with guys saying there was a fight between Kyohei (who's also a Dollars member) and Chikage near the high school and that some of the members wanted to kidnap some of Chikage's girlfriends to stop him. So he decides to head over to the fight directly to interfere with the kidnappers. By grabbing a motorcycle right outside of the warehouse. When he recognizes Mikado, from Celty's hotpot, and says that he's quitting Dollars. There was no way he'd be associated with a group that had people who'd kidnap students. With that settled, he goes inside the warehouse and makes sure of who owned the bike, putting it down when learning that it was someone else's (Vorona's, though she was wearing a helmet at this time) and dealing with the remaining kidnappers. Vorona, excited by seeing the kidnappers being sent flying, throws a knife at Shizuo's chest. Not the best idea in hindsight, as all that did was remind Shizuo of Izaya and chase her across the high school. When she jumped into a truck, Shizuo saw that Akane was in the back of the truck, but unable to immediately chase after them as Vorona shot her rifle, aimed towards him. Seeing an abandoned car, he kicked it to distract Vorona, who had the rifle, to jump over and run along the side of a building to catch up. When he did, Shizuo jumped over and crashed through the roof between Akane and Vorona, who still had the rifle. She would've shot him in the head too, if Celty hadn't shown up and created a small shield with her shadows.

Because of the sudden arrival, the one who was driving the truck took a sharp turn, and Shizuo covered Akane to protect her from a box of falling knives. With her unhurt, Shizuo punched his fist through and halved the truck before jumping out of it with Akane, having planned to take the brunt of what jumping out of a truck would cause, but Celty was still around and had used her shadows to cushion their falls. And so Akane was able to return to her family safe and sound, and Shizuo was glad that the kid would be safe now. He wouldn't even hear about Izaya getting stabbed the same night until some time later.

Things got to calm down at that point. With a visit to Russia Sushi, Simon and Dennis suggest having Vorona join and help out with the debt collection agency, being the first time Shizuo properly meets her. She becomes Shizuo's first junior, and is assigned as a second bodyguard to work with Tom. This way there was less property damage when a 'client' refuses to pay their debts properly. Soon after, Kasuka comes by Shizuo's place with Ruri to ask for him to take care of the cat, Dokusonmaru, as Ruri's stalker was a concern. He brings the cat, Kasuka and Ruri over to Shinra's to help his brother and Ruri out with her stalker. The cat ended up staying with Anri, and eventually Shizuo headed out. Masaomi Kida, that same evening, showed up to take responsibility for what had happened with the shooting. However Shizuo knew what had happened already, and the kid was only really punished for not speaking to his elder properly, which still ended up feeling like a punch. Poor kid.

Not too much happens for a little bit. Work is smoother because Vorona handles the unruly customers that are otherwise still normal. Shizuo was able to meet up and see Akane with Izaya's younger twin sisters, who was now taking self defense classes.

Then, in an unusual twist, Shizuo was arrested. It never happened before, even despite Izaya having attempted to frame him. That had simply been because cases of mutants rarely came up and most of the victims of Shizuo's attacks were the type that couldn't properly speak to the police in the first place. Property damage hadn't even been much of an issue either, because the president of the company he worked for would always compensate for repairs. Unlike the incident Izaya set up, when the police arrived with the matter of an assault on a civilian, Shizuo went along willingly for questioning. If Tom hadn't suggested that Shizuo think of his brother instead of losing his temper from whatever could come up, then he definitely would have attacked the police officers that were questioning him about the false report. After all, he'd never break the arms of a woman. They insulted, ignored and threatened to lock him up when this was all a voluntary questioning. They were even suggesting that drugs (white powder) could suddenly show up in Kasuka's place. When it was weird enough for Shizuo to question what it was all about, the officers said Shizuo just needed to be off the streets for a while and their red eyes were revealed. It seemed like enough, as it was this red eyed thing controlling and doing everything, to physically deal with the officers. Which definitely would've gotten him in trouble. Luckily, there was a traffic officer that kicked in the door after hearing everything. That didn't just save Shizuo from getting in trouble, but it restored his faith that not all of the police were being controlled and turned into the red eyed Slasher people. While being detained in the meantime, a man that was also affected with the Slasher, but acting differently from the others, asked Shizuo to create a scene so that Celty's head could be taken out of the police station. Just as he considered accepting, Shizuo is finally released as there's an explosion in a different portion of the station, and he sees someone riding off with a box; he assumes it's Vorona with Celty's head, and understanding that Izaya was behind this all, took all of his anger in with a determination stronger than ever before.

It's not long after, while still reserving the mass amount of anger for Izaya, that Shizuo sees Celty acting unlike herself. Around that time, the one that normally took the form of a bike, Shooter, showed up to try and get him to jump on. However, being a motorcycle, and Shizuo not having a license, refused to get onto the drivers seat. He didn't know how to ride a horse either, so he agrees if Shooter turned into a bicycle instead. The vehicle took him to some old warehouse where some stranger was, and Vorona was also there defending that person. All he wanted to do was get answers from the strange woman and to get what was happening to stop. Before he really knew what was happening, Vorona lunged and surprised Shizuo enough to fall back as a bunch of metal bars fell and one pierced through Vorona's side. The strange woman managed to escape as Shizuo tried to help Vorona, also telling her off a little because he would've been fine, most likely. She was smart enough to know that Izaya would take all of his attention though, and pointed out where Izaya had been watching them. Just at the time when the crane that was holding all of the metal bars started to fall. So, Shizuo punched it back toward the direction Izaya was watching right before a phone call came in. From Izaya. Instead of reacting as he normally did from the usual teasing and goading, Shizuo left it at a 'goodbye.'

Making sure Vorona was stable and well enough for him to leave, Shizuo warned Vorona to be careful as he was acutely aware that he was about to lose all rationale once he leaves. Even more, should he be unable to contain himself after this was handled and looked to be a danger to others, to shoot him. At that point, he left to go right to Izaya and settle things, not even caring about the fact that the building had already been set up with traps specifically for Shizuo. There was something set up so there was less and less oxygen available as he dealt with traps of many hazardous and dangerous materials falling or flying right at him. As hypoxia started setting in, leaving his legs almost useless at the time, the smell of gas got through to Shizuo's head enough for him to react just as a fire was started. With his upper body strength alone, he bunched a hole through the building floor to avoid the worst of the damage (still with burns and being singed,) but even more importantly with a breath of actual air. At the same time, having done so shook the building and put Izaya in a vulnerable position, which Shizuo took right away. Out of instinct from dealing with Shizuo for so long, Izaya moved to go along with the momentum of Shizuo's punch. It took him through glass and sent him into another building across the street, but he lived.

The fight continued, and Izaya was the only person Shizuo was capable of acknowledging (as he was the target.) He probably barely realized how they went across the city and reached another building elsewhere in Ikebukuro, that there was other people around, or even that he managed to grab a vending machine in that time. After managing to break Izaya's arms and getting him both exhausted and injured enough that it would've been over with another hit, there was a well-timed interrupt. Vorona showed up from behind and stabbed Izaya into the side. She was about to shoot him in the head to finish things off, so that Shizuo would not have to become a murderer or monster, but a flash grenade distracted everyone enough that Izaya had been taken out of the picture (by the Russian mafia.) That she was about to do that had knocked Shizuo out of his state enough that he was more upset and concerned that she would've become a killer instead (despite Vorona having admitted that she already liked killing.) At this point, the others that were in the building, but forgotten by Shizuo, had thought to act. Only to be held down by shadows, like most of the people around (and it was those shadows that kept Izaya from bleeding out and dying.) Celty had showed up, now with her head and without the memories of the past 20 years. Instead she acted on the information gained through her shadows and deciding to clean things up and leaving, claiming responsibility for all the things that had happened. Shinra, also being there, vocally interprets this as Celty still being kind and feeling guilty from everything. Still, she insists that leaving is the right choice.

She starts to ride off on Shooter (now a horse) into the sky, using shadows as a support for the vehicle. He begs Shizuo to send him flying right into the sky, which was a promise and threat that Shizuo had tossed out when they were much younger on the possibility of Shinra 'becoming a villain' for Celty. Trusting both of them, he grabbed Shinra's leg and threw him right into the sky. While he's not sure what happened, at the end of it Celty had caught Shinra, her head wasn't connected to the body like it had been before, and she was essentially back to normal.

However he knew that if Izaya showed up again, the rage and complete loss of rationality would come up again. Things were calming down, it seemed that Vorona returned to her family in Russia, and while Shizuo had a gut feeling that Izaya was still alive, it seemed like he wouldn't be returning for a long time. He might've continued to stay in Ikebukuro, improving in his own, slow way, but that risk would've remained. Then the news about that Institute place came up again, with how it was reopening (though Shizuo was the type oblivious enough to not realize that it had closed or the events around it,) and that it could be an option. So he figured 'why not,' (or it's more likely that his parents said it could be a good idea, if it felt right,) and decided to try contacting them. Of course, swept in his own stuff and not being the type to look beyond Ikebukuro or Tokyo in general, he did this without a complete realization of the tensions between humans and mutants in the US, or anywhere in the world. Offering to help out as a bodyguard when people were off-campus just felt like a natural offer as it'd been his job with Tom for a while already.

SAMPLES

NETWORK SAMPLE: Audio
Yo, I'm Heiwajima. Ah... Tch, hold on.

[The entry started by a faculty member, by an adult man with a rough Japanese accent before the flapping of a paper is heard. Instead of stopping and trying this again, he takes a second before trying again. At this point, along with some stilted points, it's clear he wrote some of this stuff down beforehand.]

Yeah, I'm Shizuo Heiwajima. It's not that I'm a teacher, but I got added to staff recently. If anyone heads out, I might be sent along as a bodyguard if someone thinks a problem could happen. So leave it to me if anything happens out there. Uh... I'm helping out with the grounds too. I usually don't do this stuff. Is there anything else I'm supposed to add to introductions?

Guess that's it until there's stuff to respond to, right?

[Which marks the end of an honest attempt to what Shizuo thought should be done. He definitely said it like this was expected or encouraged. Weird.]


LOG SAMPLE: Test drive thread Bonus different interaction