#i'm toooOOOO sleepy to do anything ic. rainy again today. i dIE

[dnangelic]

PUBLIC / PRIVATE INFO.

PUBLIC. info available to everyone.

dark is an infamous criminal phantom thief, although his 'true identity' remains a mystery. azumano, as his main operative center, loves and loathes him the most, and his influence completely dominates the entire province like it's his own little miniature country: a single word of his appearance or the announcement of a calling card warning can send huge, hundreds-of-persons stampedes in any direction.

likewise, there's always someone reporting on him, and his heists are typically broadcast on live television or radio. he's just as well known for giving out lots of fan-service too, and doesn't mind indulging photograph or autograph requests, though he always refuses interviews. it's no secret that he loves to show his face and play with all the flattery and frustration that comes with it from fans to law-enforcement alike, but he never gives away anything too personal - the vast, vast majority only know his appearance as a roughly 17 year old, his overwhelming fame, and his name.

the wings (or any other part of dark's appearance, like his freaky slit eyes/retractable talons/lack of fingerprint/regular body temp) aren't a secret, but they are also considered a deep mystery. nobody knows how they work, but canonically, 'nobody in azumano denies that people can fly' either. off-heist spottings do happen: there are many times when dark's flying over that ordinary people will witness the heavy shadow of enormous wings, and dark often swiftly becomes part of its seven mysteries at any school daisuke attends. dark's feathers are also often left behind in various locations and can be treated as a collector's item.

dark mainly targets hikari artworks, but he can and has targeted others, ranging from priceless rarities to no-name, entirely unguarded others. he seemingly has little particular standard or qualification for his artistic targets and personally says that it doesn't matter what he takes, so long as everything that he wants becomes his - this is, in fact, half true.

dark also sometimes just ... doesn't show up. or he shows up late compared to his arrival time. (this is due to daisuke having his own life and not devoting it utterly to being a phantom thief. seriously. he ditched once to go on a date with a girl instead of steal.) dark will also abandon a heist if poor weather happens to hit - he doesn't like to steal in conditions such as rain or snow.

on daisuke's side of things, he's generally considered an ordinary, if not somewhat boring person (at best) or a clumsy, spacey loser (at worst) within his school. other students know him as someone who's almost drowned in swim class, who's fallen off a cliff during a class hike, who gets lost, zones out and wanders off and ends up separated from groups easily, who has semi-poor grades... etc. the general consensus is that while he's nice, he's also a bit of a weirdo who gets caught up in trouble every once in a while.

his current 'friends' include saehara and sekimoto. saehara is an agressive wannabe-reporter whose only ambition is to reveal dark's true identity, and his father is an azumano inspector also tasked with capturing dark. satoshi hiwatari, who's currently head of the azumano police department (as well as the current last of the hikari) abides by a daylight truce around daisuke, and daisuke does consider him a friend. apart from hiwatari who is entirely aware of dark's identity and the niwa and hikari family's history, nobody suspects daisuke of being dark--- not even in the slightest, given how 'different' they are, and thus likewise how impossible it seems.

daisuke's involved with his school's art club. there are times he can't make it and has to leave early if he's scheduled for a heist, but he does enjoy his time at club and often spends what he can working on personal projects until late in the afternoon. many of the other members note that he always works hard and tries to demonstrate kindness by offering to clean things up or staying behind a little whenever he can, but his own connection and appreciation of the arts is fairly well-known and undeniable.

SEMIPUBLIC. info available to some general groups.

the niwa family firmly established themselves as an ancestral family of master thieves (in other words, as a 'proper' family business devoutly training its children in thievery) around 500 years ago. dark's existence goes beyond that, starting from 2000 years ago. within the 'present,' dark has only just recently returned after a 40 year period absence.

dark has never been caught and jailed by ordinary human means in any sort of way that he hadn't initially planned for. if he's ever in a prison, it's because he wants to be there, and he is most definitely leaving with something in his hands that didn't initially belong to him.

there are hikari disciple-descendants within the world who are aware of the hikari artwork's magic. one of these includes funabashi, a student who goes to daisuke's school. the niwa family occasionally collaborates with these individuals for one reason or another, or also sometimes loosely employs bodyguards to watch over dark/daisuke. <- this is also available to ordinary, other criminal families who are willing to take a job babysitting daisuke, more or less.

likewise, the niwa family does handle a variety of cursed objects. they'll buy, retrieve (steal) and store enchanted items whether benign, beneficial or dangerous within the mansion's endless basement. this includes anything from small rings to swords to magnificent statues. curses that can be lifted will be, while ones that are too dangerous are simply sealed or put to sleep - this is where daisuke's status as a 'tamer' (or, literally translated, wing-lord,) of the arts comes from.

the family doesn't usually sell artworks on the blackmarket, but if they do, there's a very strict window qualifications. the niwa family won't let anything magical or overly powerful fall into anybody's hands; artworks sold are generally nothing more than ordinary, albeit still beautiful artworks fenced.

the family is still mind-blowingly wealthy!! daisuke lives in massive, multi-story mansion, though he always just refers to it as his 'home.' it's hard to miss the house itself, though it does have a reputation as being 'impenetrable-' visitors have to ring a bell and announce themselves to even get past the outside gate, (and this is because it's insanely, fatally layered with traps from top to bottom by daisuke's mother who has to disable them.) the family has a butler, it has a maid - who are also artworks, but still.

wiz, dark's familiar and daisuke's pet, transforms with him. the two are indispensable for each other during heists as MANY of dark's tricks rely on wiz and duplicity - thanks to wiz being able to transform not only into dark's wings but also people, including dark himself, he commonly appears in two places at once, making him all that much more difficult to catch. wiz is also considered a mystery - nobody has connected that the small white rabbit often riding on daisuke's shoulder is also the enormous black-winged dog-like thing that sometimes shows up during dark's heists.

PRIVATE. info that should only be known by very, very few.

daisuke's transformations into dark are, of course, amongst his most deepest secrets. despite its uncontrollable tendency just about only his family knows about dark and the way the family curse/genes work - that he transforms whenever his heart starts to pound.

dark himself not even being human is something he guards and treats somewhat as a secret - he was created and manifested within the niwa bloodline as this gene mutation due to a magical accident between an ancient niwa and an ancient hikari. the cultural revolution, a catastrophic event in which mass artworks were burnt and destroyed, was the result of his birth, and the beginning of dark's 'betrayal' against the hikari, his technically-creators, and his choice to steal.

this forges a metaphorical chain that binds dark to the artworks and his self-imposed duty/existence as a phantom thief. in tandem with his selfishness is an immense guilt that motivates him to steal away whatever artworks he can before the hikari, or merely time and neglect, destroy everything - he's usually seeking to preserve what's left.

dark does not have any sort of power or talent to fix (or create!) the artworks, (merely, at best, sustain them for just a little longer,) and he laments this. when a magical artwork breaks, without the power of a hikari, it's as good as dead.

generally speaking, and apart from wiz, dark and daisuke are usually expected to carry out their heists alone, but anyone in the family, most typically his mother, decides upon targets and sets out the warning cards. everyone in the family assists in whatever ways they can during a preparation phase- this means gathering building blueprints, radio information, general background knowledge or hearsay, etc.

daisuke's father is a researcher who specializes in magical artifacts and cursed objects, daisuke's grandfather was also dark, and daisuke's mother is all-around the most enthusiastic person in the family who's trained daisuke since birth, and also preps and readies dark's costumes for him. generally speaking, daisuke still gets the most difficult part(s) of actually committing the heist, and is thus usually left to plan things on his own with dark.

daisuke's genes have mutated. he's unique compared to the rest of the niwa because of this, being the closest to completely merge and 'become one' with dark. getting shot during the process halted their total unification, but they've still become intertwined in a way that 'dark is visible within daisuke' and 'daisuke is visible within dark.' empath muses or people with sixth spiritual senses/magical truth-seeing eyes do your thing here.

daisuke is extremely physically capable. it isn't just dark who can do incredible acrobatic movements or has bewildering reflexes or a catlike quiet when he walks. daisuke typically hides or dulls his movements down when in public, but apart from appearances, there's genuinely no difference in capability between himself and dark. this also applies to things like skill in hacking, lock-picking, wilderness survival, etc.

dark himself is capable of all sorts of magic. memory manipulation, elemental control, invisible force, etc, just about anything you can think of --- dark cannot, however, typically abuse these abilities as the magic takes a very powerful toll on daisuke's body. small tricks like putting someone to sleep or a small flame, enough to light a candle is no problem, but a full-scale wizard battle will leave him / daisuke unconscious for days if he doesn't have some kind of magical regulatory handicap equipment.

dark and daisuke being able to cross worlds through works of art is also generally kept a secret. as long as daisuke's capable of perfectly recreating a particular scenery from azumano, like his home or his room, he can always return home, or vice versa for other locations - but he does have to be careful as he can only move through these 'passageways' with dark's power, and likewise in dark's form.

daisuke will not let dark kill. dark himself alone can get very close to inhumanly murderous points, but as long as he's merged with daisuke, taking a life of any sort is generally off the table. more than a few serious attempts have been made on dark and daisuke's life, however - and they've got the scars to show for it, though these are generally covered up.

dark generally thinks eating is a pain and a chore and not his to deal with - it's daisuke's body, after all. if he has to consume something for calories for daisuke's sake, it's probably going to be a drink, or something like a smoothie or a milkshake, if he's not hand-fed by somebody. he and daisuke both have a sweet-tooth lean and are bad with overly spicy foods - 'why is this a secret?' because daisuke doesn't want people to know you can easily lure and tempt him around with fruit and candy.