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▶ CHARACTER
NAME: Rokurou Rangetsu
CANON: Tales of Berseria + Lagunbiru CRAU
CANON POINT: Pre-Final Battle.
AGE: Canonically 22, 23/24 after his CRAU
BACKGROUND:

Linked Berseria wikis and yadda yadda—

Rokurou’s time in Lagunbiru was littered with trying to fill out his bingo card to get back to his planet and companions, forging friendships with unlikely people, and clashing blades with talented swordsmen of other worlds. While his core principles haven’t changed in the slightest, his experiences on the ship opened his eyes to what’s beyond his world and its problems.

Typically a slice-of-life station ruled by sex and mysterious bingo, Rokurou engaged in thrilling battles during his free time that only encouraged his love of the blade and living the life of a swordsman. He also grew accustomed to people passing through; many of those friendships ended in the wind, since those men vanished without a trace or warning. Rokurou was already living such a lifestyle, knowing all things are ephemeral, but this really hammered the thought home—that the life of a swordsman is fleeting, and that the goal is to enjoy the now. The moment of clashing blades, or sharing a drink before or after a match, is to be relished.

I touch a little more on how the station influenced his thoughts and personality down in the personality section, but overall, more than changing him at his core, the station put him through experiences that he never thought possible. Creatures coming and attacking people he’s come to care about. The restlessness of being somewhere truly chaining him down. The frustration of being unable to return to Velvet’s side and repay his debt. He’s managed to preserve through everything that went down, and turned out for the better because of it.


PERSONALITY:

Rokurou Rangetsu is a man that keeps his nature on his sleeve(s), quite literally.

Often described as happy-go-lucky, Rokurou is, on the regular, amicable and good-natured. Tales of Link coins it well: A freewheeling young swordsman who treats even angry Velvet with good cheer. Contracting daemonblight hasn't dampened his spirits; he uses it to empower his familial sword artes. He's nearly always smiling and his reactions tend to be calm and collected. He takes even the strangest moments in stride—during a hot springs scene where everyone switches bodies, Rokurou is incredibly relaxed about it, outside of a few jokes.

With that in mind, he does comment that while his physical senses have heightened since contracting daemonblight, some of his human emotions have ... dulled. His reactions toward the unsavory and deplorable tend to be muted into a smile and a shrug. Among the group, his sense of humor tends to be the most morbid. He'll point out when things are particularly fucked up, yet seems perfectly fine with going with whatever it is unless it directly goes against his personal code of morals. When faced with others' questionable behavior his answer is usually, "I'm a daemon—who am I to judge?"

A daemon indeed, just like the main heroine Velvet (which makes him one of the members of their criminal party that relates to her the most), Rokurou is one that pulls Velvet back when she sees Artorius for the first time after her stint in prison. When she’s off kilter he keeps her balanced, and she offers the same for him in kind when the coin’s flipped—despite how easygoing he tends to be, there are a handful of things that can make Rokurou’s switch flip.

Which is what I mean by ‘he wears his nature on his sleeve(s)’. Rokurou’s style of dress is directly indicative of his nature, his story arc, and his personality. He’s a man that became a daemon after intense fear, loss, anger, and regret—the stain of that is clearly painted on the right half of his face in rough demon skin and iconic red eye, while the left half of his face remains human. His clothes mirror this contrast, with his right side armored, tightfitting, and ready for war. His left softer, with a loose haori sleeve draping his shoulder and arm, with the pattern of birds flying into a peaceful sunset embroidered into its weave. With the kinder, brotherly side comes a rougher, more violent edge that comes out when he’s faced with an exciting challenge, or something he’s perceived to be his prey. Velvet’s had to knock some sense into him more than a time or two when his bloodlust starts to get the better of him.

Eizen mentions that even though Rokurou's become a daemon, a lot of his old notions and beliefs probably haven't gone away. While Rokurou does a lot of bad stuff ( with the Berseria crew and without ), he ultimately still follows his family's code of bushido. It's suggested that while Rokurou's a lot like how he used to be when he was human, there's a certain level of removal that comes with being a daemon. He will repay his debts. He'll protect the weak without needing to be asked. He's loyal. He's nurturing, considering his affection for Laphicet when the crew picks him up, and how he tries to encourage Velvet to make connections. Of the crew he's the most likely to be called brotherly.

Just the same, he’s also the most casual about killing. Much of his blue and orange sense of morality comes from his origins with the Rangetsu clan, his family, who were known for being even more terrifying than the daemons they hunted off their lands. A Rangetsu’s sense of right and wrong is very different from the usual person’s, considering they’re a clan with a tradition of killing its head to take up the mantle, so that already put him into the questionable morals club.

Rokurou considers himself a workingman and, even with his current mercenary-like attitude, holds himself to the same code he did when he was human. Even honor is still a thing, despite having been completely disgraced and lost everything he had, which lead to his ending up in prison at the start of the game. All by his own hand, due to pride, jealousy, and a bad inferiority complex. Seriously—human Rokurou was a dick.

Which leads us into the not so good. People generally don't turn into daemons unless there’s a lot of darkness in their heart. Rokurou's change stemmed from deep animosity and envy toward his eldest brother and the sick desperation to finally defeat him. On that same Scarlet Night that Velvet was betrayed, Rokurou met the most humiliating defeat at his brother's hands and fell into despair. Despair from realizing that, even after years of training, he was still nothing but a light workout to Shigure. All of his effort was for nothing. That all the planning, lies, and deceit he engaged in to angle for a reason to attack Shigure hadn’t mattered; Rokurou was still the same weak little boy in his brother's eyes, barely even a challenge let alone a threat. If that much—after a battle that left Rokurou crying, shaken, and shattered, Shigure hadn’t even broken into a sweat.

The dark feelings burned hot in his chest and, shortly after, they boiled over and Rokurou was overcome with daemonblight as he lay rotting in prison. A situation he had brought himself into all on his own—thanks to all of his lies, need for validation, desperation to beat Shigure, and stark realization of his own pathetic cowardice landed him at that lowest point. The fault was one hundred percent his, and all of those sick, disgusting feelings knotted up up up until they simply died along with his humanity. Once he becomes a demon, most of his lingering bitterness and hatred simmer away. There are elements of it that show up when he meets Shigure again, but by the time he faces his brother in their final battle … instead of snapping and rushing headfirst into attacking, Rokurou shares a drink with the man.

Changing into a daemon, for Rokurou, actually ends up making him a better person. An overarching theme in Berseria is how humans are perfectly capable of great evil, and how the monsters can be good despite their supposedly wicked nature. Rokurou is a case for both sides of this: his human past is conniving, selfish, and jealous. He lies for the sake of throwing Shigure under the bus and getting permission from their lord to take him down. As a daemon, Rokurou begins to walk a path less lined with violent emotions and selfishness, instead finding his way to owning his personal identity as a swordsman. He makes peace with who he is and what he is in a way he never could when he was human. He’s the only one, at the end of the game, who stays a daemon after the world is purified. He jokes it’s because his sins are too great, which they very well might be, but becoming a daemon changed him for the better.

After Shigure's finally struck down Rokurou even begins come clean as to why he had been ordered to execute Shigure—his own lies to their lord that Shigure was planning a coup. Shigure waves him off, saying that he'd have left anyway; he didn't want to be a chained dog. He also gives Rokurou words some final words of advice: "Idiot … stop worrying about the little things. Rejoice when your blade finds its mark, seethe when it doesn't, die when one finds you. That's all there is to it. The way of the sword is a simple one, that's what makes it so much fun." That's something Rokurou takes, seeming to finally understand, nodding his head before looking away.

Rokurou’s a case of a man digging himself back up from the ground. He matures throughout the game, changing from a man that hides and leans away from his flaws to accepting and owning them. He finds his place as both a man, a daemon, and, above all, as a swordsman. Becoming a daemon gives him freedom to find himself, to discover what truly matters, and to make connections with people in a way he never would have before.

As for changes within Lagunbiru—

There are the obvious. Having spent time in space already, caught in the web of strange flashing lights, rich aliens, and being away from home, Rokurou’s already learned how to use most technology (texting, video chatting, etc). He isn’t going to be completely shocked about ending up somewhere else in space. His experience on Lagunbiru station has left him even number to sex than he was before; the prospect of moonlancing for money isn’t going to shock him either, though he is going to get the impression that everyone in space needs to get laid to make some coin.

He’s ever serious about mastering the sword, still training every day and always looking for a challenge. Now that he’s interacted with a wider range of swordsmen from different worlds, he’s less inclined to outright murder his prey/opponents, instead taking sparring as a means to better himself and build interesting relationships. Farther along on his character arc of finding his way as a swordsman through this, coming to terms with who he is now, and what matters to him. On that note—many of his more violent urges ended up channeled through sex instead of murder, so that’s a thing.

At the core, Rokurou hasn’t changed much. He’s still fully intent on repaying his debt to Velvet and fighting to the end with her. His time on Lagunbiru station, however, has caused him to consider his journey, past and future, with a more critical and, because of distance, clearer eye. The canon point I took him from at the time was before he achieved his goal of killing Shigure, and the separation from direct pursuit, while never killing his desire, had him putting the new things he cared about in relation to that goal.

Now that Rokurou’s succeeded in that goal, having killed Shigure through the use of three swords, and coming to terms with the fact that his brother was still the better swordsman in the end … he’s happy with his new goal in finding someone who will hate him that much, and come to kill him with a vengeance. He’s on task assisting Velvet with her goal, repaying his debt and seeing her quest for revenge through until the end.

His time in Lagunbiru will be spotty, to avoid too much character recognition and the whole exhausting “I used to know you” song and dance. He’ll remember some important moments crisply, particularly impactful moments, but passing text threads with characters he sort of knew will, as a general rule, be hazy.


POWERS/ABILITIES:

• Enhanced senses/Daemon abilities. As he describes to Velvet, upon turning into a daemon, Rokurou found all of his senses to be sharper than ever. Sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. It's all pretty great. Thanks daemon powers! ★ As a yaksha, otherwise known as war daemon, this is meant to send him into a thrall on the battlefield. I’ll estimate that they’re at least twice as sensitive/strong as a human’s normal senses, with touch and smell being among the strongest. He’s also gotten stronger as a daemon, though a lot of that does have to do to his own daily efforts.

• Endurance/Durability. On that note, Rokurou is much hardier than your average human. Daemons have innate endurance for hard travel and durability in harsh weather and intense temperature. It tends not to bother them. Velvet is able to run around in a snowstorm in skimpy clothing, and Rokurou doesn't seem to much mind running around sunny hot beaches in layers upon layers of armor and kimono.

• Swordsmanship/Dual wielding. A student of the Rangetsu style, which focuses on two kinds of styles—the longsword, and two short swords. Rokurou's studied both, but in his quest to overcome his brother and his mastery with one long sword, Rokurou's gone after mastering the dual blades. Regardless, he's really skilled with both. And knives. Really, slicing stuff is his thing. As far as swordsmanship goes, he's pretty top notch.

• Artes. There are three kinds: martial (base) artes, hidden artes, and mystic artes. They're basically fancy attacks that can include elements, special skills, or are rooted in a certain element. Fancy moves with his fancy swords. Martial artes are basic skills and wouldn't require any nerfing. The same goes for his hidden artes, mostly, though I'd say they'd be nerfed enough not to cause any major destruction. In Rokurou’s case specifically, all of his base artes are non-elemental, so think of your average dude using a sword. All of his hidden artes, however, are elemental, and his affinitity tends to be earth. Mystic artes are the most powerful, more or less, and he won't be able to use his in game.

INVENTORY:
• Kurogane Stormquell—real big sword.
• Twin shortswords—smaller swords.
• Tokkuri—Japanese flask.