Tsukasa - (grasswavemaster)

Mun: Kaji

Basic Information

Name: Tsukasa (character name), An Shouji (player name)

Series/Fandom: .hack (specifically .hack//SIGN)

Age: 16 – 17ish

Gender: Tsukasa the character is male, but the player of the character is female. However, for all practical purposes Tsukasa will be considered male.

Species: Human (Wavemaster class)

Sexuality: Attracted to females, so heterosexual as the character Tsukasa, but the player is a lesbian.

Special Abilities: As a Wavemaster, Tsukasa can cast a huge variety of spells, including healing spells, attack spells, buff and debuff spells, and even fourth-level summon magic.

Personality:

Much of .hack//SIGN is based on Tsukasa's change in personality over the series. At the beginning, after he was first Data Drained, he lost most of his memories of his previous life, and between the remnants of the memories he had left and Morganna's warping, he became extremely lonely and arrogant. It's entirely possible the arrogance was a front for his uncertainty over who he really was. As the series goes on, though, Tsukasa gradually learns to trust others, and warm up to them. Through his new friends, he finds hope, and a reason to live for.

Tsukasa is a very uncertain person. He's not entirely sure who he is, or if he really wants to know. Though he has learned the value and the strength of friends, he still has a tendency towards being alone and brooding. He used to think that other people were “selfish”, only doing things for their own gain, but his attitude has changed a good deal since he first started. Tsukasa is a very strong person, but insecure. He doesn't really recognize his own strength of heart most times, but when it comes down to when it's needed, he can be very determined and persistent. He has the courage to stand up to Morganna, and the courage to stop sitting around and do something about the problems in The World. Fighting against an omnipotent and omnipresent AI in a computer game is something that's reserved for people who really want to make a change, in both themselves and in the world around them. He cares about people, especially his friends, even if he might not admit it.

Though he doesn't remember everything from offline, the parts he does remember aren't very good, and he prefers not to think of his past, or his family. He does have a fondness for old movies, because the player behind him used to watch them with her mother, when her mother was alive. He also has a tendency to forget to eat or sleep, because he's not used to doing it as his character.

History:

(Spoilers for .hack//SIGN)

The online game “The World” was created by a man named Harald Hoerwick, who had fallen in love with a woman named Emma Wielant. When she died, he refused to accept it and tried to create “proof” of their love. This “proof” was the ultimate AI (artificial intelligence), named Aura. To oversee her creation and “birth”, Harald made a system program named Morganna Mode Gone (possibly mistranslated from Morganna Maude Gonne), which for simplicity's sake is referred to as “Morganna”.

Morganna realized that she would have no purpose once Aura was born, and rebelled against Harald, trying to prevent Aura from awakening. Harald was trapped by her in The World, and his physical body died.

The player behind Tsukasa, An Shouji, is a high school girl who's been through a lot of trouble. Her mother died when she was very young, and her father, a businessman, subjected her to both physical and mental abuse (her father denied her even basic feminine products). The physical abuse is left vague, but An does have a number of bruises on her body.

To escape the real world, An created the male Wavemaster Tsukasa in The World. It's unknown how long Tsukasa was active before the events of SIGN, but it was at least long enough to become a level strong enough to go adventuring alone.

Morganna had part of her program, Macha, lure Tsukasa to the bottom of a dungeon and Data Drained him (Data Drain reconfigures data, and usually not in a very nice way). As a result, his mind was trapped in The World, and Morganna somehow linked him to Aura's growth. Positive feelings would cause her to grow, and negative feelings would cause her to delay her growth and become corrupted. Morganna gave Tsukasa a Guardian, which was a monster that could Data Drain people, gave him the power to warp between fields and servers without a Chaos Gate, and also altered his memories, making him believe he was a male in real life and that Morganna was his mother. As a result of the attack, Tsukasa's body in the real world fell into a coma.

Because of his strange powers, rumors started to spring up that he had found the lost Key of the Twilight, which was said to give the user absolute control over The World. Tsukasa wandered the game, not talking to anyone, and shunning any attempts at forming groups or any relationships at all. Morgana (and Macha) tried to keep him in a hidden area, where Aura slept. The fact that he was always in the game was noticed by a number of players, including Mimiru and Bear, the latter of which investigated what was happening to Tsukasa's body in the real world.

What he found was the player in a hospital, and An's father was fighting to take her off of life support. A fellow player, BT, told Bear that he shouldn't investigate further if he “wasn't ready to take full responsibility for that child”.

Tsukasa's powers didn't go unnoticed, either. The use of his Guardian caused him to attract notice from many people, including the Crimson Knights, a guild dedicated to keeping the peace in The World. The guild was led by Subaru, a female Heavy Axeman character. The Crimson Knights captured Tsukasa, but later released him at Subaru's urging. She later disbanded the guild.

Through a great deal of prodding, Tsukasa started to talk to other players, and joined them on their investigation to find out just why he couldn't log out, and what the connection with the Key of the Twilight was. During this time, he, Mimiru, and Bear found an AI copy of Harald in The World, and Tsukasa realized the Key was actually Aura. However, once they left the room AI Harald was in, Macha attacked the group, resulting in Tsukasa's death.

Morganna brought Tsukasa back, though, and asked him why he wanted to return to the outside world. The attack and subsequent revival damaged his memory, and he no longer remembered that Aura was the Key. He started to spend more time with Subaru, however, and they grew close. Subaru told Tsukasa that she wanted to meet him offline, once he was able to log out. He brought her to the hidden area where Aura slept, though Aura wasn't there. Subaru left the area, and Morganna Data Drained Tsukasa, leaving him mentally broken. He sat in the hidden area in a daze, and Macha watched him. He gave Aromatic Grass to Macha, who was confused at the gesture.

After a while, Tsukasa recovered enough to continue the search for answers, and the group was aided by the hacker Helba. By this time Tsukasa had been trapped in The World for six months. Morganna sent a Guardian to attack him and his friends, but Tsukasa's own Guardian protected them. The search moved to Hulle Granz Cathedral, where Bear told him that when he logged out, he was prepared to become Tsukasa's legal guardian and support him financially. More Guardians showed up, but so did Macha, who Data Drained the Guardians at the same time they Data Drained Macha.

Tsukasa resolved to awaken Aura, and does so by standing firm in his decision to leave The World and wake up. Morganna sent another part of her program, Skeith, to go after Aura. Bear informed Helba that Aura was awake, and Helba shut down the server, forcing Tsukasa to wake up.

But Tsukasa woke up neither in The World nor in the hospital.