Profile

⇔ CHARACTER ⇔

Being a boy of few words, very little is known about Shizuka Doumeki. His home and family life seemed to be that of normalcy - a loving mother and father, no siblings, and a wise grandfather who passed away when Shizuka was in the fifth grade. It was his grandfather that he spoke of the most, often quoting the things Haruka Doumeki said in life and making use of his teachings and techniques.

Being raised in a Shinto shrine, with a grandfather who could see spirits, many would have thought that Shizuka would have gained some sort of ability from it. While this is partially true, Shizuka grew up with no ability what so ever to see the spirits that inhabited the world. For this, his life was uneventful, with daily chores and duties such as cleaning the temple and helping his family prepare bodies for funerals, as well as school activities like being a part of the archery club.

Somewhere amongst all this, Shizuka met the often-spastic Kimihiro Watanuki and his crush Kunogi Himawari. While not particularly eventful in it's own right, meeting them set in to motion the path the rest of his life would take. The first indication of this being Shizuka's realization that Himawari had terrible luck - luck that was so bad that it would cause others horrible misfortune. At the time he was uncertain of what to do about it, and simply stayed out of the way for the most part, unaware that his own power of exorcism and spirit energy could actually nullify Himawari's bad luck. Thankfully, nothing of real note happened during their time in school together.

As calm as things had been for all three of them with this arrangement, everything changed when Watanuki's boss proposed a night of telling ghost stories, and requested the use of Shizuka's temple. Confused but curious, he agreed, and the three joined Yuuko there for the night of 100 ghost stories. As the stories continued and got more and more frightening, the spirits in the temple became restless, eventually trying to break through a door and drag Watanuki away. Yuuko instructed Shizuka to take up his bow and arrow and fire at them. The arrow glowed with bright spirit energy and dispelled them almost instantly.

The mysterious Yuuko then asked Shizuka to keep close to Watanuki, his ability to cancel out spirits one of the few things that could keep hungry spirits away from his friend. By staying at Watanuki's side, he could keep him out of relative danger and help him complete tasks that would pay his heavy debt to his boss.

Unfortunately this was not an ideal arrangement for Watanuki, who viewed Shizuka as a rival in many things. His calm, cool demeanor was a constant point of contention for Watanuki, and the fact that Himawari doted on both of them of course meant, in his mind, that Watanuki could never stand a chance with her. Despite Watanuki's loud protests, Shizuka honored Yuuko's request and stayed as close as he possibly could when Watanuki wasn't in class or working.

From then on he was called upon several times to help on Watanuki's 'missions'. One of the first instances actually indebted Watanuki to Shizuka when he saved him from falling off the school roof when they had been instructed to solve the mystery of a school haunting. The spirit there had grown angry and tossed Watanuki over the ledge. Shizuka sustained an injury in the process, and to make up for it, Watanuki began making lunches and bringing them to school for him.

Shizuka joined Watanuki on many more missions together, too many to properly recount. More than once Shizuka was put in to a position where he had to safe Watanuki's life - from standing ten hours in the rain holding on to a ribbon so Watanuki could find his way back out from the spirit world, to freeing him from the spell of a spirit woman who was taking his life energy bit by bit. More often than not Watanuki would grumble and complain about it, and some situations even earned Watanuki's full on hate towards Shizuka. Those moments would eventually pass, and usually food was offered as a sign of forgiveness.

For a time, things went on this way, until the day when Watanuki was visiting the temple and got tangled in a spider's web. He helped to get the boy out from it, but in the process destroyed a spider's home. The spider held a grudge against Shizuka for this, and by the end of the day his right eye was almost completely held shut by a web across it.

Realizing what had been done, Watanuki confronted Yuuko about what was happening, being told by her that soon Shizuka would completely lose that eye to the spider's grudge. Apparently upset by this turn events, he went and took the grudge upon himself without telling Shizuka. The web vanished from his eye and went to his friend instead. Watanuki covered it with a patch and tried to pretend like nothing was wrong, but it was an easy facade to see through. Angry with him, he demanded to know what he had done, going so far as to lash out at him and hit the wall next to Watanuki when he refused to admit what had taken place.

Truthfully, though, Shizuka didn't need to be told. It had become obvious when he ripped Watanuki's patch off and saw the spider webbing on his eye. Unfortunately when he went to Yuuko to ask how to reverse Watanuki's sacrifice, Yuuko admitted that because Watanuki had come to her first, she could not offer a cure or reversal, or even a clue on how to. Dissatisfied with this, Shizuka returned to his temple and began researching for himself.

While he was doing this, Watanuki had to embark on a mission on his own to save a child spirit that he had befriend some months previous. She had been taken hostage by the very spider queen that had taken his eye, and only he could save the Zashiki Warashi spirit. He confronted the queen on his own, but completely lost his eye in the process.

Of course Shizuka was not about to stand around idly as this took place, and finding no other way to help, he offered half his eye to Yuuko on the chance that Watanuki wasn't able to retrieve his own. When Watanuki returned to school the next day, their eyes had changed - Watanuki now had one blue eye and one gold eye, and Shizuka had the reverse. Watanuki had accepted his gift, and with it, they gained not only a better understanding of one another, but had shared in Watanuki's power. Shizuka could now, from time to time, catch glimpses of the world and of spirits through the other half of his vision.

The sharing would not end there, either. Himawari's bad luck finally struck Watanuki, despite Shizuka's best efforts to keep him from it. Accidentally giving away protection that the spirit of Shizuka's grandfather, Haruka, had given Watanuki in a dream left him wide open for any sort of ill will that might have come his way. Shizuka sensed the problem with this when Watanuki confessed to giving away the dream balloon, but could do little more than request that his friend wait for him after school so they could walk home together.

He was unaware that the 'attack' would come in the simplest form - Himawari touching Watanuki's shoulder as they walked down the hall together. Unthinkingly, Watanuki leaned against a window with the very same shoulder. The window suddenly and inexplicably gave way, and Watanuki tumbled out, falling several stories before hitting the ground and the shattered glass below.

Losing blood quickly, Shizuka struggled to keep Watanuki in the land of the living, calling an ambulance while tending to his deeper wounds as best as he could manage. As the ambulance arrived, though, Yuuko did as well, explaining that his friend had precious little time left. With that, she instructed the ambulance take him to her shop, bringing Himawari and Shizuka along.

For the first time since meeting the pair, Shizuka stepped foot in to Yuuko's shop. Previously he had no need to, and thus saw it as everyone else saw it - an empty lot between two buildings. But with Watanuki's life on the line, his need outweighed Shizuka's own, and he could see the house that served as Yuuko's shop, thus allowing him to also enter and aid in a way that only Yuuko knew how.

Shizuka gave up his blood, enough blood to recover what Watanuki had lost. And Himawari, in true selflessness, took his terrible scars on to her own back. Watanuki was saved, and though his fully recovery took quite some time, he was eventually back on his two feet as if it had never happened.

The experiences, though, brought Shizuka far closer to his friend than he ever thought possible. Normally emotionally distant from nearly everyone, he'd formed a bond that couldn't be broken - one of sight and blood and ties that bound far beyond any mortal coil.

For that, as Yuuko explained, was hitsuzen - the power of inevitability that had pulled them all together.

⇔ PERSONALITY ⇔

Shizuka is quiet, reserved, stoic and often without expression, often speaking only when spoken to or when his wisdom may be needed, and usually the one simply listening silently to others. Through all the trials and tribulations that have been thrown at him, he's only ever lost his temper once when a friend put themselves on the line for his sake when he deemed it unnecessary. For this, a lot of people consider him cold or distant, but to assume that all there is to this boy is simply that would be underestimating him to a near dangerous level.

His quiet nature comes actually from far deeper emotions than most give him credit for. Being raised in a temple and taught many things by his grandfather, he takes value in needing to say and do the right thing when it counts, to not waste needless energy when it might be needed for other, more important tasks. His knowledge shows itself in quips and stories about his grandfather or to explain the situation they're currently in, and his physical strength is most obvious in his archery skills. He is an impeccable shot, even when injured, but his own humility does not allow him to take a significant amount of pride in this fact.

Emotionally, though they do run deep in him, he is a stone, a pillar of support to those in need and a source of calm in an often rough and stormy sea in the lives of those around him. Unfortunately this also makes his view of himself as some one who is expendable - so long as those around him are protected, safe and happy, he doesn't have to take up happiness of his own, and he will even go so far as to take some one else's burden, even if it means potentially harming himself.

His methods in life strike others as confusing, like simply putting himself in place with Watanuki and Himawari in order to keep her curse from him rather than simply telling the boy of Himawari's bad luck, but he often proves there is a method to his so-called madness.

Though stoic, Shizuka is not without humor, though it is entirely a dry, sarcastic one. Sometimes his bluntness can come off as nearly offensive, though many times it's earned him respect for simply telling things like they are. Watanuki is never particularly impressed by it, though, and if anyone gets annoyed with Shizuka's dry wit it's him. Admittedly, he does take some amusement in Watanuki's fits over his behavior, and has, on more than one occasion, done and said things to keep the reaction going, just to see him flail and spaz. It's unknown if this behavior translates to anyone else, as his friend is quite a unique person in his own right.

Through these many layers of Shizuka Doumeki, one thing shines through the most - he is intensely dedicated and loyal, and will do everything in his power to not let those he cares about down.

⇔ PARTNER ⇔

Shizuka's Bakumon takes on the personality of one of Yuuko's two spiritual assistants, particularly Moro. In his world, the pair (Moro-dashi and Maru-dashi) keep the shop in existence and have little more than child-like appearances and behaviors. This makes them seem young, but truly even in digimon terms the Digital World versions of Moro and Maru are actually quite old and have been around a lot longer than many.

When together with her own double, a Kudamon who took up the name of Maru, the two often speak in unison, repeat one another, and mimic little dance moves in a cute display. Alone, Moro is a less likely to be so hyper and rambunctious, but still displays quite a bit of energy, bouncing and hopping about the place. She still keeps to the habit of repeating words and saying things in a sing-song manner, though.

She loves to tease, sometimes a bit too harshly, and though she tempers her words with a sugar-sweet smile (well, for a digimon anyway) and tone, it's obvious that she doesn't think particularly highly of other humans. This is really only balanced by a strong sense of curiosity and a desire to learn new things, to which she will perk up and listen if there's something interesting going on. If one were to ask her, though, she would openly admit the only human she truly has any level of respect for is her partner.

When Maru is around, she's usually the one to initiate the 'cute' act first. Strangely enough, their names Moro-dashi and Maru-dashi actually read as 'streaking' and 'flashing' in Kanji. This seems to tie in to the fact that many things to them are just a joke to be laughed at and played with.

⇔ RELATIONSHIPS ⇔

Yuuko Ichihara• Kimihiro Watanuki

⇔ LINKS ⇔

Mun
Digital Dive

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