Entry tags:
Application for Haven
Name: Siberia
Contact Info:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
siberia
Other Characters Played: Garry /eeek + Ada / occute
Requested apartment: 28 (28.1, if available)
Character Name: Neuro Nougami
Canon: Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro
Canon Point: After chapter 201 (after leaving Earth and regaining his strength, but before returning there)
Background/History: Everything begins with a murder. High school student Katsuragi Yako's life has been turned upside down - her father was murdered just a few days ago, and the police have been entirely unable to find a culprit for the closed-room murder. As time goes by and no progress is made, it begins to look like the case will have to be ruled a suicide, even though the injuries on the body could never have been self-inflicted. Yako spirals into depression, hopeless and helpless.
Until a demon appears on her ceiling out of nowhere and informs her that he'll solve her mystery. For him, mysteries are food, he claims, and to eat them, he must unravel them. All she has to do is pretend to be a detective, and he'll do the rest.
To her great shock, he has success - using impossible powers, the strange man finds the culprit of her father's murder. Afterwards demon disappears, no longer having any use for the mystery at her house, and Yako can finally rest, released from her distress. Or... she should have been. Looking back on what had happened - the weird, cruel demon and her clumsy detective work - she still feels she hardly understands what happened, and wishes that maybe she had done a bit of a better job understanding both.
And, of course, the demon suddenly reappears as soon as she says that - "I don't need the house, I need you. So - let's go solve more mysteries!" Thus begins the odd story of the sadistic demon Neuro and high-school girl detective Yako as they hunt for the ultimate riddle. Oh, and they just might save humanity a few times in there, too.
Almost right away, it becomes evident that dragging Yako out of whatever she's doing to meet him all the time is a hassle, so the two decide to acquire an office. Naturally, the one Neuro picks is a Yakuza loan shark hideout - but, by solving the mystery there, Neuro gets them to hand it over and acquires an office, as well as a secretary (a braid of hair attached to a corpse in the office wall, reanimated by Neuro's demon energy) and a second slave (one of the gang members who inhabited the office previously, Godai.) Along the way, they also get mixed up with the police, who are naturally suspicious of this weird high school girl and her even weirder-looking 'assistant' - in particular, the nonchalant detective Sasazuka ends up meeting them multiple times, although his superiors strongly disapprove of Yako and company.
They go ahead and solve several smaller cases, building up Yako's reputability - Neuro wants to find the best cases. However, the case that really catapults Yako into the spotlight is the Aya Asia case. Aya is a famous singer not only in Japan, but internationally; her music is so powerful that it's not uncommon for people to pass out during live shows. She comes to their office herself after seeing the website Neuro set up, and asks her to solve the case of her manager and her friend, who both died by what the police decided were suicides. However, Aya believes otherwise. Though he seemed to have been curious about Yako as a human, Aya's ability to manipulate others with her voice makes her the first human Neuro seems fascinated by, and further sparks his interest in the human capacity to evolve. It turns out that Aya is the murderer, herself; while Neuro was able to uncover the trick of her murders, Yako is the one who really pulls her in by revealing her motives, which pleases him. And considering Aya's popularity, this action also rockets Yako's fame to the stars - just as Neuro wanted. Now he'd get even more mysteries.
Not too long after, Neuro and Yako encounter someone unlike any criminal they've met before - the infamous 'Monster Robber X.' Known for his nasty habit of blending up his victims completely into a thick red paste and sealing them in glass boxes, his crime scenes are always spotless, and the police can never catch him. But Neuro and Yako can, and he turns out to be a very strange person indeed - a human, but a mutant one who can shapeshift so thoroughly that even his brain can't stay in one shape. His memories are fading, and he no longer remembers who he really is. X is intrigued by Neuro, due to his similar inhumanity and ability to change, and makes a vow to kill him later so he can observe Neuro's insides and hopefully learn who he really is. Neuro is intrigued that someone actually wants to fight him despite knowing what he really is.
Afterwards, some thugs arrive in the office while Neuro and Yako are away - leaving just Godai, the yakuza Neuro 'persuaded' to work with them, to deal with them. While he beats up most of them, he gets throttled by the person heading them, who then tells him that his boss is interested in hiring the pair of detectives before leaving. They're looking for a 'face' for their information company - someone whose fame can get them even more info. And Neuro agrees to let them use Yako (although she really doesn't want to do it.) However, in the end, they turn out to be trying to get her framed so that they have a distraction as they smuggle weapons into the country. Neuro, fortunately, manages to turn the situation around - not only does Yako get away with her name untarnished, but she holds onto the fame she made while working with them, and Neuro gets the boss, Mochizuka, and his information company to work under him, supplying him with even more mysteries.
It's at this point that Yako begins to feel incompetent - she doesn't have the abilities of the demon Neuro, yakuza Godai, or even the enchanted braid of hair, Akane. Neuro presses her to solve a mystery on her own, but in the end, he still has to save her. However, he says something unusual. "You are not as good as I expected, Yako. On what day will you change?"
X finally reappears, sending a calling card to Neuro and the police about the place where he will next appear. Neuro likens it to being invited to dinner, and merrily brings Yako along. X waits until the moment Neuro is weak - when he's in the process of transforming in order to eat a mystery - and strikes then. However, Neuro barely manages to evade it, and the two end up getting into a monstrous (literally) fight. Neuro reveals that his body is becoming more human the longer he stays on Earth, alarming X - however, even so, Neuro still has enough power to defeat him, telling him that X is definitely a human.
"That tendency towards improvement... is the proof that your true form is human. By my side is one such human... Because humans are alive for only a short time, they are desperate to search for their potential to evolve. However, the more they are driven, the greater the speed of evolution. ...Seeing it is very pleasant."
Yako's opportunity to prove herself and her 'evolution' comes up soon enough when a rash of unusual violent crimes breaks out across the entire world. These are being caused by a viral internet video which causes the criminal desires of any who watch it to come to the surface, even if the person isn't really a criminal themselves. Neuro enters dataspace to try and find it (in order to eat the puzzle there), but the security is so powerful that it pushes him right out.
The two eventually pinpoint famous neurology professor Harukawa Eisuke as a suspect, and go to visit him; however, they find him dead, his supercomputer missing, and his students, all suffering from the electronic drug, attack them. After fending them off, Neuro enters his own computer once more, this time prepared, and manages to find not a programming maze, but the culprit - an artificial intelligence named Electronic Person HAL. He's an exact replica of Harukawa in the data world, defended by 3 huge security programs stored in 3 hidden supercomputers.
Neuro seeks out and destroys the supercomputers, but it's long and difficult enough that he has enough time to sequester a fourth one - by taking control of an enormous nuclear aircraft carrier, which could easily destroy the world. Not only that, he's set up a strong password. One that Neuro can't break, as it's related to his motive. Therefore, it's up to Yako to find the password; if she doesn't, the whole world wiill be subject to a nuclear attack.
"My goal is the same as Harukawa's... Life, even between one and zero." Yako discovers why Electronic Person HAL was made, and why he seems so bent on taking over the world. Harukawa was a doctor of the brain who worked on many people, but there was just one person that stuck out to Yako - Honjou Setsuna, who had an incurable brain disease that even Harukawa could not unravel. Having fallen in love with her over the course of trying to heal her, he decided to make it his life's work to bring her back from 'zero,' even if he couldn't bring her to one. He'd replicate her in the computer.
Neuro is able to defeat the security, and Yako is able to find the password; the mystery is eaten, and the world is saved.
However, they don't get to rest for long. X strikes again, kidnapping Yako while Neuro is distracted by a mystery... which, it turns out, is a really good way to piss him off. Neuro goes to battle him and rescue his slave; however, the police also appear, and as X is escaping with the help of his one close assistant, Ai, one of them suddenly kills her, leaving X stranded. The policeman who shot, it turns out, isn't really a cop at all; his name is Sicks, and he was wearing the skin of the cop he'd murdered and tortured. Sicks reveals that he's the one who created X, and that X is a female clone of his, born 17 years ago to be experimented on and set loose in society. Then, he takes him back with him to subject him to more experiments. The sheer evil intent of Sicks shakes everyone.
Sicks invites Neuro to work with him later, but Neuro is disgusted by him and the fake 'puzzles' he creates to try and appease Neuro - made with no evil intent whatsoever. Sicks calls himself part of the 'New Bloodline,' a group of humans who have been bred specifically for their great evil and who want to replace humanity. The two become enemies, as Neuro wants to save the humans who provide mysteries for him.
At this point, battles with each of Sicks' 5 servants ensue; these can be summed up more easily on said servants' respective wiki pages.
Neuro vs DR
Neuro vs Tierra
Godai and Yako vs Vijaya
Neuro vs Genuine
By this point, things begin to fall apart. Officer Sasazuka suddenly goes rogue, chasing after Sicks on his own in a fit of revenge on the man who he found out killed his family years ago - and is killed. Another man on their side, mathmatician Fumio, turns out to have been a traitor, and kills himself, as well. The stress starts to become too much for Yako, and in a fit of passion, tells Neuro she wished she'd never met him. And he tells her to get out and never come back.
Fortunately, Aya Asia, the singer Yako had put in jail so long ago, comes along to reassure her - even if it hurts sometimes, the fact that Yako met Neuro and so many other people was a good thing. And the world is still in danger from Sicks. How did Aya know Yako was in trouble? Neuro himself had come to her and asked to hear her sing - to try and understand human emotions. Yako returns to Neuro, deciding that she still needs him, and they reconcile.
After that, Neuro and Yako pursue X and Sicks, who are attempting to exit the country. X has been brainwashed into Sicks' control. While Neuro and Yako do that, the police deal with the last of Sicks' servants, Kasai. Meanwhile, Neuro fights Sicks while Yako deals with X, as detailed in the latter paragraphs here and here. Neuro, with help from both Yako and X, just barely manages to defeat Sicks by using up almost all of his remaining energy - if not for the humans who rescue him afterwards, he probably would have died.
Drained of power, Neuro returns to the office, sickly, injured and sleeping on the couch almost all the time. If he continues to stay on Earth, it seems he'll surely die - however, time flows differently in Hell than on Earth. Even if he only goes back to Hell for a quick breath of fresh air to restore his energy, a thousand years could pass on Earth. What if another threat like Sicks appears during his absence?
However, Yako reassures him - humans can look after themselves. Neuro realizes that humans have been helping him and themselves all along - the police force, X, and Yako even saved his life. What was he thinking? With a laugh, he tells Yako to look after the world, and she says she'll continue to shine brighter so Neuro can find her no matter what.
"Hurry back, you stupid demon."
Personality: Neuro is pretty much the epitome of a "villainous hero" character. He is undeniably cruel and self-serving with a penchant for needless and over-the-top torture - hell, it's not a stretch to call him evil. After all, he is a demon from Hell. Despite all this, however, he is one half of the dynamic duo that leads his canon, he catches criminals and protects people at the cost of his own well-being, and, in the end, even saves all of humanity while sustaining dire injury. What's up with him?
Primarily, Neuro is motivated by just two things - hunger and boredom, particularly the former. Food is literally more important to Neuro than oxygen, and he comes to Earth, a habitat which he physically cannot survive in, just to find more delectable riddles. Most of his actions are completed in pursuit of his next meal, and the desire for mysteries is pretty much the driving force behind his character - at one point, he even refers to himself as "the desire for mysteries" itself. However, there is more to him than that; while eating is his biggest interest, he spends plenty of time merely entertaining himself, and it could be argued that his love and seeking of puzzles is something he does more to quench his hungry brain than his stomach. Neuro is highly intelligent and very curious, and enjoys learning, exploring and investigating things - he takes apart machines in canon and eats their mysteries, though they don't contain the "evil intent" that he really wants. Moreover, he's playing with a game system from Hell, as well as participating in silly little things with Yako just for fun, such as fishing and exercising. Interestingly, while Neuro is generally quite inhuman and unrelatable, it seems that, deep down, his motivations are completely understandable - he's just seeking happiness like anyone else. And for him, like Yako, "to eat is to be happy."
Sadism is the name of the game when it comes to Neuro. A large proportion of his actions are purposefully hurtful to someone else (usually Yako), whether physically or verbally, and carried out with a diabolical glee. It's easy to think that maybe the way he acts is normal for a demon, but this turns out to not be the case. While, of course, being a demon who's lived in Hell his entire life makes him a more cruel and violent person, it becomes crystal clear by the time the manga ends that Neuro persoally just loves to bring the pain. He calls torturing Yako his hobby. He gleans a seemingly endless amount of entertainment from putting people through intense discomfort, as well as coming up with more and more creative ways to do so. In fact, he's even willing to expend demonic energy pulling off his incredibly mean-spirited pranks. Obviously, he hides his incredible sadism from the public for the most part to avoid gaining negative attention, but anyone who spends a lot of time with him is going to be subjected to it. And, naturally, anyone who Neuro doesn't like will get it just as badly, if not worse - the culprits of the crimes he solves are almost always tortured by him right before or right after he eats their mystery, sometimes put into a permanent state of suffering by one of his Demon Tools. One of the reasons he can be such a successfully frightening demon is that he is entirely capable of backing up any threat he makes, no matter how off-handed, and he has no moral compunctions about doing so. Within reason, at least; while he likes to harrass Yako and others that are useful to him, he would never deal serious injury to them, since it would be like shooting himself in the foot.
If there is a root to his cruelty, it's probably his massive ego. Neuro considers himself to be absolutely the most intelligent, terrifying and magnificent creature that's ever set foot on Earth, if not Hell itself, and it definitely shows through his confident and smug attitude. "Everywhere I go, it seems that people bow before my modest self." His sadism doubles as him regularly asserting his dominance and control over others. As may be expected, this also means Neuro almost always puts his own concerns first - he only does what he wants to, ever, no questions asked. While many people visit his and Yako's detective agency, he turns down a large number of them, regardless of how much they might have needed their services, because their mysteries simply aren't interesting enough for him. It also means Neuro is 100% fearless, and tends to be just a little bit overconfident and too carefree, though he would never, ever admit it. He's backed himself into corners multiple times due to his superior attitude, sometimes only surviving by the skin of his teeth. If it weren't for his sharp mind and resilient body balancing out his reckless actions, he'd probably have gotten himself killed several times over.
Despite all of this, he's not a cold, hateful character in the least. In fact, he seems incredibly eccentric, even (or perhaps especially) among demons. Neuro has a rather silly personality; he likes to pull pranks and play jokes, although they're usually at another's expense, and often says ridiculous or contrary things just to get a rise out of Yako. In a similar vein, he seems to enjoy telling her stories about the demon world and is surprisingly open about his home and his powers to her, although he keeps it a secret from most everyone else. And unless he's putting on his "innocent face," it's incredibly rare to see Neuro without a smile, be it one of maniacal, ravenous glee, a smug smirk, or just a simple calm face of confidence.
Speaking of the "innocent face," Neuro puts on an entire second persona when interacting with the public. According to him, demons aren't supposed to be noticed on Earth, if they're supposed to be there at all, and thus, he keeps a low profile, hiding his more noticeable real self. When out with Yako, he acts as a simple assisstant, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with a big, cheerful smile - a loyal but somewhat cowardly man who looks up to Yako and happily obeys her every whim (which he makes up for her without the public knowing, of course.) Of course, it's a bit over the top, but he and Yako are such successful detectives that nobody really questions it. This is only dropped in private when he's with Yako and/or Godai, or when he's up against someone that requires him to be more serious - whether they be an enemy or just a particularly perceptive person.
The fact that Neuro acts like such a fool in such of humans is a bit of a reflection of what he thinks of them - at least at the beginning. Neuro, being the egotist that he is, originally thought very little of humans - after all, they were weak and powerless bugs he could crush in an instant if they wanted to. They merely provided more complex and interesting mysteries than the unabashedly murderous demons in Hell. As time passed, though, they began to mean more to him - they went from mere snack-supplying slaves to a flock which Neuro thought of himself as the shepherd of, a group his lifestyle depended on whom he would protect no matter what. And while that may not sound like much, for someone as self-centered as Neuro, that is a massive leap in importance. Neuro became highly appreciative of the human capacity to change and evolve, something demons don't have. In fact, as time passes, he even begins to guide Yako along a path of growth, interested in seeing her become stronger, smarter, and more capable. By the end, amazingly enough, Neuro even seems to respect Yako as someone worthy of working not for him, but alongside him - a partner. When he's forced to return to the demon world due to being weakened, he doesn't worry for his own health, but for that of the humans! What's more, he's able to trust both Yako and the humans enough to leave Earth behind without worrying that they'll somehow destroy themselves without his protection.
... Of course, all of that protecting humans must be balanced with how much he loves to eat, seeing as they're his food source, and he really loves to eat. But considering how he's willing to give Yako a modicum of respect at the end, it seems that he really does have some small space reserved in his shrunken little black heart for humanity.
Lastly, it's worth noting that Neuro has almost zero empathy, and is pretty much incapable of figuring out how someone is really feeling and reacting accordingly. Demons are extremely different from humans, and since Neuro (until recently) had little incentive to understand how a group he perceives as inferior works, he still has almost no understanding of how their minds work. He badly hurts both Yako and Godai multiple times in an emotional sense due to his total inability to understand their emotions or sympathize with them. As Yako says, "he knows a lot of little things but none of the big ones." This is his biggest weakness. There's also a large amount of Earth behaviors, objects, et cetera that he doesn't understand, which sometimes leads to hijinx, and other times leads to huge in-fighting between him and his companions. This quality of his is one reason why he and Yako end up becoming such an excellent crime-fighting team - while Neuro is able to understand all the mechanical parts of a crime, such as how it happened and what was used, he cannot understand the criminals' motivations or reasons. Yako is the only one who can figure out that part.
Abilities/Powers: Neuro is a demon. On top of that, he is an extremely powerful demon; he easily cows the one other demon that appears in the series, who refers to him as "Hell's most intelligent demon," and is thought to be second only to the King of Hell. The number and potency of his powers is daunting.
The most obvious power Neuro has is the ability to flippantly ignore any and all scientific laws that Earth follows. Things like physics, gravity, the law of conservation of mass? Human silliness. He's able to cling to any with zero effort - he can casually walk around on the walls and ceilings, or lift himself off the ground using only his hair.
Every single cell of Neuro's body is a slave to his willpower, and he can transform himself and his appendages into a variety of different threatening shapes. Again, it does have limits - he's no shapeshifter, or at least doesn't exhibit that ability in canon besides turning from his demon form to his human form and back (and his demon form is already quite humanoid.) But he can turn his hands into knives, his hair into snakes, his arms into huge many-eyed tentacles covered in venomous barbs, et cetera - his imagination seems to be the limit.
He also possesses more "standard" demon powers, such as superhuman strength, reflexes, and endurance. Neuro is capable of feats like catching a bullet with his eyelashes and can survive getting shot and stabbed multiple times without much hindrance. Over time, his body expels foreign items like bullets through the skin with no harm done. The weaker he is, the less resilient his body is, however, and he can be killed by human weapons if he's in bad shape.
Neuro is extremely observant - after all, he's a lover of puzzles and riddles, and has never found one he couldn't solve. His demonic abilities take this to extreme levels. If he's very, very, very focused, Neuro can even notice things as tiny as neural vibrations and cell respiration. He also appears able to tell if someone is human or not, perhaps by sensing the energy mentioned above - he's able to tell after consideration that the shapeshifter they meet is a human, albeit a mutated one.
His hacking abilities are also quite remarkable, although calling them "hacking" may be a bit of a stretch; he seems to be able to use monitors as a sort of portal between the real world and the virtual world, and can enter cyberspace by transforming his hand into a special form and sticking it through the monitor Persona-style using one of his spells. However, he is not completely infallible - while he can break through most firewalls and track down information on the internet by hand, well-made security can keep him out. Things like passwords also seem to elude his grasp; he's no mind-reader.
He has mastered an enormous variety of spells (777, to be precise), including an especially powerful 7 known as the 7 Tools of the Demon King. The sheer number of these spells means he has one for almost every situation - whether he needs to analyze the chemical composition of something or make someone shoot lasers from their eyes, he's got it covered. The 7 Tools of the Demon King, from what we are shown of them, seem to be mainly combat-based, unlike his other spells. Using these tools absorbs a more substantial amount of demonic energy than the other powers listed (which are basically skills he was born with as a demon), and thus, he tends to use them sparingly, particularly the strong ones. Since being able to make up new powers on the fly would be kind of lame and cheap, especially in a horror game, I'm going to restrict my usage to what he uses in canon, minus a few. The ones I will not use are: Evil Rapid, Evil Time Machine, all anime-only tools
However, Neuro is not invincible. In a nutshell, all of these powers rely demonic energy to work; the more time he spends away from Hell and the less he eats, the weaker these powers become. Additionally, Neuro himself will become weaker and weaker, as he, too, is a magical creature relying on Hell's energies; according to him, his body becomes more human the longer he's on Earth as it adjusts to the different atmosphere and rules. He can replenish his powers by eating (mysteries, natch) or by finding a place on Earth with air that's "healthy" for a demon to breathe. These include places that produce poisonous natural gas, etc. Additionally, he stores emergency rations of demonic energy in the small triangular beads, Demon Batteries, that he wears in his hair. He has a limited number of these, and they do not provide him with a sustainable amount of power - he uses them only in dire situations where he will die if he cannot save himself with his power.
It should be noted that, overall, Neuro avoids fighting when he can, and he says as much in the manga. He is more than aware of the limitations of his powers when he's away from Hell. Only when he, Yako or his food source is threatened will he take up the battle. His abilities are mostly used to help him solve puzzles (and beat up his 'slaves.')
Since Haven's atmosphere will be able to support him, his body will not deteriorate the way it did in canon. However, he will still deplete his demonic energy reserves when he uses his magic, and considering there isn't exactly a rash of criminal cases for him to solve in Haven aside from the big ones, he will have to conserve his energy accordingly.
Contact Info:
siberiaOther Characters Played: Garry /
eeek + Ada / occuteRequested apartment: 28 (28.1, if available)
Character Name: Neuro Nougami
Canon: Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro
Canon Point: After chapter 201 (after leaving Earth and regaining his strength, but before returning there)
Background/History: Everything begins with a murder. High school student Katsuragi Yako's life has been turned upside down - her father was murdered just a few days ago, and the police have been entirely unable to find a culprit for the closed-room murder. As time goes by and no progress is made, it begins to look like the case will have to be ruled a suicide, even though the injuries on the body could never have been self-inflicted. Yako spirals into depression, hopeless and helpless.
Until a demon appears on her ceiling out of nowhere and informs her that he'll solve her mystery. For him, mysteries are food, he claims, and to eat them, he must unravel them. All she has to do is pretend to be a detective, and he'll do the rest.
To her great shock, he has success - using impossible powers, the strange man finds the culprit of her father's murder. Afterwards demon disappears, no longer having any use for the mystery at her house, and Yako can finally rest, released from her distress. Or... she should have been. Looking back on what had happened - the weird, cruel demon and her clumsy detective work - she still feels she hardly understands what happened, and wishes that maybe she had done a bit of a better job understanding both.
And, of course, the demon suddenly reappears as soon as she says that - "I don't need the house, I need you. So - let's go solve more mysteries!" Thus begins the odd story of the sadistic demon Neuro and high-school girl detective Yako as they hunt for the ultimate riddle. Oh, and they just might save humanity a few times in there, too.
Almost right away, it becomes evident that dragging Yako out of whatever she's doing to meet him all the time is a hassle, so the two decide to acquire an office. Naturally, the one Neuro picks is a Yakuza loan shark hideout - but, by solving the mystery there, Neuro gets them to hand it over and acquires an office, as well as a secretary (a braid of hair attached to a corpse in the office wall, reanimated by Neuro's demon energy) and a second slave (one of the gang members who inhabited the office previously, Godai.) Along the way, they also get mixed up with the police, who are naturally suspicious of this weird high school girl and her even weirder-looking 'assistant' - in particular, the nonchalant detective Sasazuka ends up meeting them multiple times, although his superiors strongly disapprove of Yako and company.
They go ahead and solve several smaller cases, building up Yako's reputability - Neuro wants to find the best cases. However, the case that really catapults Yako into the spotlight is the Aya Asia case. Aya is a famous singer not only in Japan, but internationally; her music is so powerful that it's not uncommon for people to pass out during live shows. She comes to their office herself after seeing the website Neuro set up, and asks her to solve the case of her manager and her friend, who both died by what the police decided were suicides. However, Aya believes otherwise. Though he seemed to have been curious about Yako as a human, Aya's ability to manipulate others with her voice makes her the first human Neuro seems fascinated by, and further sparks his interest in the human capacity to evolve. It turns out that Aya is the murderer, herself; while Neuro was able to uncover the trick of her murders, Yako is the one who really pulls her in by revealing her motives, which pleases him. And considering Aya's popularity, this action also rockets Yako's fame to the stars - just as Neuro wanted. Now he'd get even more mysteries.
Not too long after, Neuro and Yako encounter someone unlike any criminal they've met before - the infamous 'Monster Robber X.' Known for his nasty habit of blending up his victims completely into a thick red paste and sealing them in glass boxes, his crime scenes are always spotless, and the police can never catch him. But Neuro and Yako can, and he turns out to be a very strange person indeed - a human, but a mutant one who can shapeshift so thoroughly that even his brain can't stay in one shape. His memories are fading, and he no longer remembers who he really is. X is intrigued by Neuro, due to his similar inhumanity and ability to change, and makes a vow to kill him later so he can observe Neuro's insides and hopefully learn who he really is. Neuro is intrigued that someone actually wants to fight him despite knowing what he really is.
Afterwards, some thugs arrive in the office while Neuro and Yako are away - leaving just Godai, the yakuza Neuro 'persuaded' to work with them, to deal with them. While he beats up most of them, he gets throttled by the person heading them, who then tells him that his boss is interested in hiring the pair of detectives before leaving. They're looking for a 'face' for their information company - someone whose fame can get them even more info. And Neuro agrees to let them use Yako (although she really doesn't want to do it.) However, in the end, they turn out to be trying to get her framed so that they have a distraction as they smuggle weapons into the country. Neuro, fortunately, manages to turn the situation around - not only does Yako get away with her name untarnished, but she holds onto the fame she made while working with them, and Neuro gets the boss, Mochizuka, and his information company to work under him, supplying him with even more mysteries.
It's at this point that Yako begins to feel incompetent - she doesn't have the abilities of the demon Neuro, yakuza Godai, or even the enchanted braid of hair, Akane. Neuro presses her to solve a mystery on her own, but in the end, he still has to save her. However, he says something unusual. "You are not as good as I expected, Yako. On what day will you change?"
X finally reappears, sending a calling card to Neuro and the police about the place where he will next appear. Neuro likens it to being invited to dinner, and merrily brings Yako along. X waits until the moment Neuro is weak - when he's in the process of transforming in order to eat a mystery - and strikes then. However, Neuro barely manages to evade it, and the two end up getting into a monstrous (literally) fight. Neuro reveals that his body is becoming more human the longer he stays on Earth, alarming X - however, even so, Neuro still has enough power to defeat him, telling him that X is definitely a human.
"That tendency towards improvement... is the proof that your true form is human. By my side is one such human... Because humans are alive for only a short time, they are desperate to search for their potential to evolve. However, the more they are driven, the greater the speed of evolution. ...Seeing it is very pleasant."
Yako's opportunity to prove herself and her 'evolution' comes up soon enough when a rash of unusual violent crimes breaks out across the entire world. These are being caused by a viral internet video which causes the criminal desires of any who watch it to come to the surface, even if the person isn't really a criminal themselves. Neuro enters dataspace to try and find it (in order to eat the puzzle there), but the security is so powerful that it pushes him right out.
The two eventually pinpoint famous neurology professor Harukawa Eisuke as a suspect, and go to visit him; however, they find him dead, his supercomputer missing, and his students, all suffering from the electronic drug, attack them. After fending them off, Neuro enters his own computer once more, this time prepared, and manages to find not a programming maze, but the culprit - an artificial intelligence named Electronic Person HAL. He's an exact replica of Harukawa in the data world, defended by 3 huge security programs stored in 3 hidden supercomputers.
Neuro seeks out and destroys the supercomputers, but it's long and difficult enough that he has enough time to sequester a fourth one - by taking control of an enormous nuclear aircraft carrier, which could easily destroy the world. Not only that, he's set up a strong password. One that Neuro can't break, as it's related to his motive. Therefore, it's up to Yako to find the password; if she doesn't, the whole world wiill be subject to a nuclear attack.
"My goal is the same as Harukawa's... Life, even between one and zero." Yako discovers why Electronic Person HAL was made, and why he seems so bent on taking over the world. Harukawa was a doctor of the brain who worked on many people, but there was just one person that stuck out to Yako - Honjou Setsuna, who had an incurable brain disease that even Harukawa could not unravel. Having fallen in love with her over the course of trying to heal her, he decided to make it his life's work to bring her back from 'zero,' even if he couldn't bring her to one. He'd replicate her in the computer.
Neuro is able to defeat the security, and Yako is able to find the password; the mystery is eaten, and the world is saved.
However, they don't get to rest for long. X strikes again, kidnapping Yako while Neuro is distracted by a mystery... which, it turns out, is a really good way to piss him off. Neuro goes to battle him and rescue his slave; however, the police also appear, and as X is escaping with the help of his one close assistant, Ai, one of them suddenly kills her, leaving X stranded. The policeman who shot, it turns out, isn't really a cop at all; his name is Sicks, and he was wearing the skin of the cop he'd murdered and tortured. Sicks reveals that he's the one who created X, and that X is a female clone of his, born 17 years ago to be experimented on and set loose in society. Then, he takes him back with him to subject him to more experiments. The sheer evil intent of Sicks shakes everyone.
Sicks invites Neuro to work with him later, but Neuro is disgusted by him and the fake 'puzzles' he creates to try and appease Neuro - made with no evil intent whatsoever. Sicks calls himself part of the 'New Bloodline,' a group of humans who have been bred specifically for their great evil and who want to replace humanity. The two become enemies, as Neuro wants to save the humans who provide mysteries for him.
At this point, battles with each of Sicks' 5 servants ensue; these can be summed up more easily on said servants' respective wiki pages.
Neuro vs DR
Neuro vs Tierra
Godai and Yako vs Vijaya
Neuro vs Genuine
By this point, things begin to fall apart. Officer Sasazuka suddenly goes rogue, chasing after Sicks on his own in a fit of revenge on the man who he found out killed his family years ago - and is killed. Another man on their side, mathmatician Fumio, turns out to have been a traitor, and kills himself, as well. The stress starts to become too much for Yako, and in a fit of passion, tells Neuro she wished she'd never met him. And he tells her to get out and never come back.
Fortunately, Aya Asia, the singer Yako had put in jail so long ago, comes along to reassure her - even if it hurts sometimes, the fact that Yako met Neuro and so many other people was a good thing. And the world is still in danger from Sicks. How did Aya know Yako was in trouble? Neuro himself had come to her and asked to hear her sing - to try and understand human emotions. Yako returns to Neuro, deciding that she still needs him, and they reconcile.
After that, Neuro and Yako pursue X and Sicks, who are attempting to exit the country. X has been brainwashed into Sicks' control. While Neuro and Yako do that, the police deal with the last of Sicks' servants, Kasai. Meanwhile, Neuro fights Sicks while Yako deals with X, as detailed in the latter paragraphs here and here. Neuro, with help from both Yako and X, just barely manages to defeat Sicks by using up almost all of his remaining energy - if not for the humans who rescue him afterwards, he probably would have died.
Drained of power, Neuro returns to the office, sickly, injured and sleeping on the couch almost all the time. If he continues to stay on Earth, it seems he'll surely die - however, time flows differently in Hell than on Earth. Even if he only goes back to Hell for a quick breath of fresh air to restore his energy, a thousand years could pass on Earth. What if another threat like Sicks appears during his absence?
However, Yako reassures him - humans can look after themselves. Neuro realizes that humans have been helping him and themselves all along - the police force, X, and Yako even saved his life. What was he thinking? With a laugh, he tells Yako to look after the world, and she says she'll continue to shine brighter so Neuro can find her no matter what.
"Hurry back, you stupid demon."
Personality: Neuro is pretty much the epitome of a "villainous hero" character. He is undeniably cruel and self-serving with a penchant for needless and over-the-top torture - hell, it's not a stretch to call him evil. After all, he is a demon from Hell. Despite all this, however, he is one half of the dynamic duo that leads his canon, he catches criminals and protects people at the cost of his own well-being, and, in the end, even saves all of humanity while sustaining dire injury. What's up with him?
Primarily, Neuro is motivated by just two things - hunger and boredom, particularly the former. Food is literally more important to Neuro than oxygen, and he comes to Earth, a habitat which he physically cannot survive in, just to find more delectable riddles. Most of his actions are completed in pursuit of his next meal, and the desire for mysteries is pretty much the driving force behind his character - at one point, he even refers to himself as "the desire for mysteries" itself. However, there is more to him than that; while eating is his biggest interest, he spends plenty of time merely entertaining himself, and it could be argued that his love and seeking of puzzles is something he does more to quench his hungry brain than his stomach. Neuro is highly intelligent and very curious, and enjoys learning, exploring and investigating things - he takes apart machines in canon and eats their mysteries, though they don't contain the "evil intent" that he really wants. Moreover, he's playing with a game system from Hell, as well as participating in silly little things with Yako just for fun, such as fishing and exercising. Interestingly, while Neuro is generally quite inhuman and unrelatable, it seems that, deep down, his motivations are completely understandable - he's just seeking happiness like anyone else. And for him, like Yako, "to eat is to be happy."
Sadism is the name of the game when it comes to Neuro. A large proportion of his actions are purposefully hurtful to someone else (usually Yako), whether physically or verbally, and carried out with a diabolical glee. It's easy to think that maybe the way he acts is normal for a demon, but this turns out to not be the case. While, of course, being a demon who's lived in Hell his entire life makes him a more cruel and violent person, it becomes crystal clear by the time the manga ends that Neuro persoally just loves to bring the pain. He calls torturing Yako his hobby. He gleans a seemingly endless amount of entertainment from putting people through intense discomfort, as well as coming up with more and more creative ways to do so. In fact, he's even willing to expend demonic energy pulling off his incredibly mean-spirited pranks. Obviously, he hides his incredible sadism from the public for the most part to avoid gaining negative attention, but anyone who spends a lot of time with him is going to be subjected to it. And, naturally, anyone who Neuro doesn't like will get it just as badly, if not worse - the culprits of the crimes he solves are almost always tortured by him right before or right after he eats their mystery, sometimes put into a permanent state of suffering by one of his Demon Tools. One of the reasons he can be such a successfully frightening demon is that he is entirely capable of backing up any threat he makes, no matter how off-handed, and he has no moral compunctions about doing so. Within reason, at least; while he likes to harrass Yako and others that are useful to him, he would never deal serious injury to them, since it would be like shooting himself in the foot.
If there is a root to his cruelty, it's probably his massive ego. Neuro considers himself to be absolutely the most intelligent, terrifying and magnificent creature that's ever set foot on Earth, if not Hell itself, and it definitely shows through his confident and smug attitude. "Everywhere I go, it seems that people bow before my modest self." His sadism doubles as him regularly asserting his dominance and control over others. As may be expected, this also means Neuro almost always puts his own concerns first - he only does what he wants to, ever, no questions asked. While many people visit his and Yako's detective agency, he turns down a large number of them, regardless of how much they might have needed their services, because their mysteries simply aren't interesting enough for him. It also means Neuro is 100% fearless, and tends to be just a little bit overconfident and too carefree, though he would never, ever admit it. He's backed himself into corners multiple times due to his superior attitude, sometimes only surviving by the skin of his teeth. If it weren't for his sharp mind and resilient body balancing out his reckless actions, he'd probably have gotten himself killed several times over.
Despite all of this, he's not a cold, hateful character in the least. In fact, he seems incredibly eccentric, even (or perhaps especially) among demons. Neuro has a rather silly personality; he likes to pull pranks and play jokes, although they're usually at another's expense, and often says ridiculous or contrary things just to get a rise out of Yako. In a similar vein, he seems to enjoy telling her stories about the demon world and is surprisingly open about his home and his powers to her, although he keeps it a secret from most everyone else. And unless he's putting on his "innocent face," it's incredibly rare to see Neuro without a smile, be it one of maniacal, ravenous glee, a smug smirk, or just a simple calm face of confidence.
Speaking of the "innocent face," Neuro puts on an entire second persona when interacting with the public. According to him, demons aren't supposed to be noticed on Earth, if they're supposed to be there at all, and thus, he keeps a low profile, hiding his more noticeable real self. When out with Yako, he acts as a simple assisstant, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with a big, cheerful smile - a loyal but somewhat cowardly man who looks up to Yako and happily obeys her every whim (which he makes up for her without the public knowing, of course.) Of course, it's a bit over the top, but he and Yako are such successful detectives that nobody really questions it. This is only dropped in private when he's with Yako and/or Godai, or when he's up against someone that requires him to be more serious - whether they be an enemy or just a particularly perceptive person.
The fact that Neuro acts like such a fool in such of humans is a bit of a reflection of what he thinks of them - at least at the beginning. Neuro, being the egotist that he is, originally thought very little of humans - after all, they were weak and powerless bugs he could crush in an instant if they wanted to. They merely provided more complex and interesting mysteries than the unabashedly murderous demons in Hell. As time passed, though, they began to mean more to him - they went from mere snack-supplying slaves to a flock which Neuro thought of himself as the shepherd of, a group his lifestyle depended on whom he would protect no matter what. And while that may not sound like much, for someone as self-centered as Neuro, that is a massive leap in importance. Neuro became highly appreciative of the human capacity to change and evolve, something demons don't have. In fact, as time passes, he even begins to guide Yako along a path of growth, interested in seeing her become stronger, smarter, and more capable. By the end, amazingly enough, Neuro even seems to respect Yako as someone worthy of working not for him, but alongside him - a partner. When he's forced to return to the demon world due to being weakened, he doesn't worry for his own health, but for that of the humans! What's more, he's able to trust both Yako and the humans enough to leave Earth behind without worrying that they'll somehow destroy themselves without his protection.
... Of course, all of that protecting humans must be balanced with how much he loves to eat, seeing as they're his food source, and he really loves to eat. But considering how he's willing to give Yako a modicum of respect at the end, it seems that he really does have some small space reserved in his shrunken little black heart for humanity.
Lastly, it's worth noting that Neuro has almost zero empathy, and is pretty much incapable of figuring out how someone is really feeling and reacting accordingly. Demons are extremely different from humans, and since Neuro (until recently) had little incentive to understand how a group he perceives as inferior works, he still has almost no understanding of how their minds work. He badly hurts both Yako and Godai multiple times in an emotional sense due to his total inability to understand their emotions or sympathize with them. As Yako says, "he knows a lot of little things but none of the big ones." This is his biggest weakness. There's also a large amount of Earth behaviors, objects, et cetera that he doesn't understand, which sometimes leads to hijinx, and other times leads to huge in-fighting between him and his companions. This quality of his is one reason why he and Yako end up becoming such an excellent crime-fighting team - while Neuro is able to understand all the mechanical parts of a crime, such as how it happened and what was used, he cannot understand the criminals' motivations or reasons. Yako is the only one who can figure out that part.
Abilities/Powers: Neuro is a demon. On top of that, he is an extremely powerful demon; he easily cows the one other demon that appears in the series, who refers to him as "Hell's most intelligent demon," and is thought to be second only to the King of Hell. The number and potency of his powers is daunting.
The most obvious power Neuro has is the ability to flippantly ignore any and all scientific laws that Earth follows. Things like physics, gravity, the law of conservation of mass? Human silliness. He's able to cling to any with zero effort - he can casually walk around on the walls and ceilings, or lift himself off the ground using only his hair.
Every single cell of Neuro's body is a slave to his willpower, and he can transform himself and his appendages into a variety of different threatening shapes. Again, it does have limits - he's no shapeshifter, or at least doesn't exhibit that ability in canon besides turning from his demon form to his human form and back (and his demon form is already quite humanoid.) But he can turn his hands into knives, his hair into snakes, his arms into huge many-eyed tentacles covered in venomous barbs, et cetera - his imagination seems to be the limit.
He also possesses more "standard" demon powers, such as superhuman strength, reflexes, and endurance. Neuro is capable of feats like catching a bullet with his eyelashes and can survive getting shot and stabbed multiple times without much hindrance. Over time, his body expels foreign items like bullets through the skin with no harm done. The weaker he is, the less resilient his body is, however, and he can be killed by human weapons if he's in bad shape.
Neuro is extremely observant - after all, he's a lover of puzzles and riddles, and has never found one he couldn't solve. His demonic abilities take this to extreme levels. If he's very, very, very focused, Neuro can even notice things as tiny as neural vibrations and cell respiration. He also appears able to tell if someone is human or not, perhaps by sensing the energy mentioned above - he's able to tell after consideration that the shapeshifter they meet is a human, albeit a mutated one.
His hacking abilities are also quite remarkable, although calling them "hacking" may be a bit of a stretch; he seems to be able to use monitors as a sort of portal between the real world and the virtual world, and can enter cyberspace by transforming his hand into a special form and sticking it through the monitor Persona-style using one of his spells. However, he is not completely infallible - while he can break through most firewalls and track down information on the internet by hand, well-made security can keep him out. Things like passwords also seem to elude his grasp; he's no mind-reader.
He has mastered an enormous variety of spells (777, to be precise), including an especially powerful 7 known as the 7 Tools of the Demon King. The sheer number of these spells means he has one for almost every situation - whether he needs to analyze the chemical composition of something or make someone shoot lasers from their eyes, he's got it covered. The 7 Tools of the Demon King, from what we are shown of them, seem to be mainly combat-based, unlike his other spells. Using these tools absorbs a more substantial amount of demonic energy than the other powers listed (which are basically skills he was born with as a demon), and thus, he tends to use them sparingly, particularly the strong ones. Since being able to make up new powers on the fly would be kind of lame and cheap, especially in a horror game, I'm going to restrict my usage to what he uses in canon, minus a few. The ones I will not use are: Evil Rapid, Evil Time Machine, all anime-only tools
However, Neuro is not invincible. In a nutshell, all of these powers rely demonic energy to work; the more time he spends away from Hell and the less he eats, the weaker these powers become. Additionally, Neuro himself will become weaker and weaker, as he, too, is a magical creature relying on Hell's energies; according to him, his body becomes more human the longer he's on Earth as it adjusts to the different atmosphere and rules. He can replenish his powers by eating (mysteries, natch) or by finding a place on Earth with air that's "healthy" for a demon to breathe. These include places that produce poisonous natural gas, etc. Additionally, he stores emergency rations of demonic energy in the small triangular beads, Demon Batteries, that he wears in his hair. He has a limited number of these, and they do not provide him with a sustainable amount of power - he uses them only in dire situations where he will die if he cannot save himself with his power.
It should be noted that, overall, Neuro avoids fighting when he can, and he says as much in the manga. He is more than aware of the limitations of his powers when he's away from Hell. Only when he, Yako or his food source is threatened will he take up the battle. His abilities are mostly used to help him solve puzzles (and beat up his 'slaves.')
Since Haven's atmosphere will be able to support him, his body will not deteriorate the way it did in canon. However, he will still deplete his demonic energy reserves when he uses his magic, and considering there isn't exactly a rash of criminal cases for him to solve in Haven aside from the big ones, he will have to conserve his energy accordingly.