IC INFORMATIONNAME: Cat-Eyed Boy
AGE: Around 10-12
CANON: Cat-Eyed Boy
CANON POINT: Has gone through all the incidents in the manga
CANON INFORMATION: Basic summaryTo go into more detail, Cat-Eyed Boy is the son of a nekomata, but was born deformed and looking unusually human. While the rest of the monsters wanted his father to kill him, the nekomata instead left him with a human woman named Mimi, before leaving into the forest. While Mimi did her best to raise him, he was shunned by the rest of the villagers, and eventually ended up living in the local shrine for his own safety, due to the superstitions around said shrine. Mimi did her best to take care of him even then, bringing him food and binding his wounds after the villagers tried to kill him with a trap.
However, eventually, a bunch of strange rocks started washing up on the beach, and at night revealed themselves as howling monsters that were summoning a storm. Mimi was possessed by one of them, and destroyed the statue in the shrine, along with the last protection the village had. Cat-Eyed Boy tried to warn the village, but even when the storm was arriving they didn't believe him. He ended up having to steal a woman's baby to lure them after him to higher ground, and managed to quell the tsunami by throwing the stone forms of the monsters into the water. However, Mimi was killed in the storm, and after shedding tears for her, Cat-Eyed Boy left the village for good, becoming a wanderer.
PERSONALITY: On the surface, Cat-Eyed Boy is a snarky jerk who hates humanity. A lot of his internal narration is about the foolishness of humans, or how they can't be trusted. This probably stems from his childhood, where there was literally only one person who cared about him, and in the end when he was in danger even she refused to let him in for fear the mob chasing him would come after her. His apparent disdain towards humans can be seen most clearly when he encounters a group of "1000 Demons" who want him to join, but then reveal they are actually deformed humans, not actual demons, which causes him to mock them for pretending to be something they're not. (Actually, only one of them is human and the rest are animated organs. It's that kind of manga.)
However, in truth, he actually does care quite deeply about people. When he sees someone being attacked by a monster, his first instinct is to save them. In one story, he tries to save a boy's mother from drowning, and doesn't let go of her even as he's being dragged out to sea. And as mentioned above, he shows a boy the door to the afterlife so he can see his dead mother one last time. The aforementioned "1000 Demons" claim that their goal is to turn people who have ugly hearts ugly in appearance as well, and Cat-Eyed Boy is fine with this until they try to mutilate a boy who was only the son of a corrupt man, after which he immediately tries to stop them. Even before this, he tries to save the whole family, although he claims he just wants to stop the group from accomplishing their goal than any care towards the family.
A lot of the time, he claims that his helping out people is simply repaying them for letting him live in their attic for a while unknowingly. However, there is at least one case where he follows a boy who has previously been attacked by a snake monster home, and decides to help protect him and live in his attic at the same time. He also saved the boy's mother mentioned above when he apparently wasn't living in their attic, although right afterwards he warns the boy never to tell anyone what he did. Also, at one point when a town is overrun by meatball monsters that turn out to be symbolic for cancer, he discovers that the stick he has been using for his bindle has awakened to a life of its own, and is also the cure for the cancer. Despite a boy he told to help carry said stick-creature dropping it and getting infected after running away, once he realizes the nature of the cure the boy is the first one he cures. Later on, he grinds the entire stick to dust and throws it into the water supply, saving the entire town. He claims that he only cares about the monsters because he's become suspectible to them as well after receiving a human blood transfusion, but he's perfectly willing to heal everyone in the end.
In truth, Cat-Eyed Boy is a very lonely child. After every supernatural crisis he comes across ends, he moves on, seemingly aware of the fact that these happenings seem to follow wherever he goes to some extent. He is eager to join the "1000 Demons" at first because they claim they are similar, and only later does he realize they think he is a deformed human, which he finds insulting. In one story, he talks about a close friendship between two boys that he was so jealous of that he ended up not paying any attention to them until a disaster happened. However, in the end, he's been hated by almost everyone he meets, and so he refuses to reach out to others. Cats are the only creatures that seem kind to him, and so are the only ones he really tries to befriend. But even then he has to leave them behind when he walks on.
Still, his trolling nature is a true part of himself. He has at one point turned himself into an exact copy of another boy and eaten some of his sweets just to mess with him and his mom, and at one point when attacked by a sword pretends his head has been chopped off, yet is still talking, even though the family in this case is in actual danger as well. He has a smile on his face when talking about the past most of the time, even in the case of tragic stories, although most of the time he will be serious when they're still happening.
Cat-Eyed Boy likes it when he gets to act like an authority, as can be seen when he takes charge of the family threatened by the 1000 Demons, and when he shows off the door to the afterlife. He will only rarely accept the advice of others, and usually only when things are so bad he can't even move around by himself. And even then, he will quickly turn to his own ideas if things aren't working out the way he wants.
ABILITIES: Cat-Eyed Boy has the ability to see in the dark, as well as sharper claws and fangs than a normal human. He can also run on all fours at quite a reasonable speed. He has the ability to communicate with cats, as well as summon any in the area by whistling, which I'm hoping will also be applicable to some degree to any feline creatures encountered here. He heals very fast, and his blood can replenish itself beyond what is normally possible, and receiving blood transfusions actually negatively impacts his healing. His bodily fluids turn into acid when he gets angry, which he usually uses to spit acid at foes he encounters. This acid has been seen causing pain, but not actually killing or melting anything. He's also shown the ability to create illusions, and spit fire with a coal and gasoline in his mouth. Last, he seems to have some intuition about monsters and the supernatural, since he can recognize their origins and abilities, and at one point is able to lead a boy to a door to the afterlife.
INVENTORY: Cat-Eyed Boy carries a bindle over his shoulder, which usually has some dried food in it, and not much else.
MEMORY ALTERATION: He found a trapdoor in the ceiling of the place he was hiding in, and felt a strange energy from it. So he opened it and found himself in this strange new place.
SAMPLE: Cat-Eyed Boy still can't believe he has his own room. He's never had his own room before, and quite frankly the whole thing smells of a trap. But there's no proper attic here, so he'll have to make do until he has to move on again.
He's not sure when he'll have to move on, though. From the sounds of it, strange things are already happening here, and have been for a while. And everyone here is already investigating things. Why, he might even be able to sit back and let them take care of it for once! No one here is acting stupid over the idea of monsters and ghosts not existing, even if the ones here aren't like anything he's seen before.
And he's not sure he wants to move on. Nothing especially disastrous has happened since he arrived here. No one has screamed at the sight of him, or at least they've only screamed in circumstances where it's what he's doing, not what he looks like, that makes him scream. People actually want him to come out of his room and go places with them!
"Humph," he says to himself as he lies down on the floor, the blanket spread over him. "That doesn't matter. I've gotta remember what always happens in the end. Their friendliness won't last forever! I know how this will go. They're foolishly trusting me and believing that nothing worse will happen. If they go on believing that, they'll get in trouble. Stupid humans." Who cares if some of them aren't actually human?
