ooc - info

[enthraller]

Character Name: Saralegui [sah-rah-lei-gee]

Canon: Kyo Kara Maoh!

Age: 17

Gender: Male

Sexual Orientation: Pansexual

Eye Color: Gold

Hair Color: Pale blond

Height: 5'7"

Other: Canonly described as really, really pretty. Also, assume the glasses are on unless otherwise stated.

Clothing: He likes layering with loose, flowing fabrics, belted around the hips or with a sash, and usually with long sleeves and boots. Colors tend towards simple neutrals with jewel tones for more formal affairs.

Background: (massive tl;dr ahead i am so sorry)
Saralegui was born to King Gilbert of Small Shimaron and Queen Alazon of Seisakoku when Gilbert was shipwrecked and washed up on a beach in her hidden country. Alazon nursed him back to health and they fell in love, eventually producing a child, but the situation in Seisakoku was tense. The Holy Sword that gave the country life had been lost, and the presence of a human and a half-human child only added to the population's unease, so Alazon was forced to make the decision to send Gilbert and her child away, back to his own country.

So Saralegui grew up in Small Shimaron with a father who paid him no attention. Perhaps Gilbert simply had no idea what to do with a child, or he couldn't bear to deal with the little boy that looked so much like his lost love, but whatever his excuse was, Gilbert barely even looked at his own son. Saralegui was cared for by the servants and nothing he did was enough to catch his father's attention. At some point during his childhood, he apparently gave up on trying, having realized that it wasn't because of anything he did and so nothing else he did would change it. Instead, Saralegui decided he would simply have to one day become a far greater king than Gilbert ever was, so that everyone would love and respect and fear him. It wouldn't matter if his father didn't care for him and his mother seemed to have abandoned him, not if the rest of the world would always give him his due attention.

That wouldn't be a very easy task, of course. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, Saralegui was a bastard child and little more than another chore for the servants to take care of, let alone a respected member of the royal family and heir to the throne. Surely, all the king's advisers were hoping that Gilbert would marry properly and sire a legitimate heir before there was any chance of Saralegui becoming king. The only person to ever treat him like he mattered was a mysterious dark man, Belias, who came to the castle when Saralegui was young and pledged his loyalty to him on the spot.

Skipping forward to when Saralegui was fifteen, King Gilbert died of natural causes without ever attempting to become close with his own son. Saralegui became the ruler of Small Shimaron amidst nobles who would try to take advantage of his inexperience and use him like a puppet, with only Belias to trust. He would prove to be good at the job, however, and established a reputation as a kind king skilled in governing his country despite his young age and despite those who would try to manipulate the throne for their own ends.

Another two years later sees Saralegui's first appearance in the anime. After disposing of the previous king Belal and all other possible heirs, Lanzhil takes the throne of Large Shimaron and throws a party to celebrate. Saralegui goes to pledge his allegiance to Lanzhil and Large Shimaron, if only to save his country the possible trouble of not doing so, and privately remarks to Belias that Lanzhil seemed dull for such an ambitious man. During the party, the Maoh, King Yuuri of the demon country Shin Makoku, sneaks in disguised as a girl, and Saralegui plays Prince Charming and rescues "her" from a humiliating situation (that is, Yuuri tripping on his face in the middle of a crowded ballroom) by asking for a dance. After a very sparkly dancing montage and some polite words, Yuuri flees and Saralegui comments on the fatefulness of the situation, as he'd wanted to meet the Maoh and apparently wasn't at all fooled by the disguise.

Yuuri manages to get himself captured and while the rest of the room panics and gossips over the presence of a demon, Saralegui simply remarks on how surprisingly careless the Maoh is, and how cowardly Lanzhil is for making his own escape from the scene and leaving his guests behind. He decides that even a coward can be useful, however, and watches secretly during the execution Lanzhil arranged for Yuuri to see just how strong the famous king of demons really was. He isn't disappointed, too transfixed by the Maoh's display of power to even look away until Belias pulls him to safety and guides their own escape from the area.

The two kings meet again later in the country of Caloria, when Saralegui rescues Yuuri once more, this time using Small Shimaron's army to scare off a mysterious group that was threatening the Maoh and his friends. Yuuri recognizes him from the party in Large Shimaron and Saralegui admits to having known all along who he was, though he'd been unable to say anything in order to keep up appearances with Large Shimaron. Sitting down with Yuuri and the ruler of Caloria, he claims that the previous conflict between his and their countries (during the race for the Boxes from the first two seasons) was orchestrated without his knowledge by a subordinate, and he asks for forgiveness. He returns the soldiers from Caloria that had been stationed in Small Shimaron and asks to join in Shin Makoku's alliance with the other human nations. Quietly, of course, as he still couldn't publicly ally with Large Shimaron's enemy while still a vassal to that country. Yuuri accepts without hesitation, always eager to befriend everyone, and Saralegui promises to invite him to Small Shimaron at some point.

He issues that invitation shortly after, meeting some resistance from those serving him but powering on through it. One of his men, Gerald, complains about upsetting the Large Shimaron by doing so, and Saralegui later remarks to Belias in private that Gerald was most likely going to tell Large Shimaron himself, greedy and seeking to improve his standing by sucking up to the strongest king. A group of assassins attacks while Saralegui is meeting with Yuuri's group some ways away from the capital, and after the crisis is dealt with he admits to them that there are some within the country that do not agree with his ruling, who would like to kill him and overthrow the country. He claims not to know who's at the heart of it, and elsewhere Gerald calms himself by thinking that Saralegui couldn't possibly know of his involvement with the attack. However, it seems that Saralegui is always a step ahead of everyone else.

Arriving at his castle, Saralegui plays innocent and introduces Yuuri to Gerald as his head of defense and "a man he trusts deeply", and Gerald for his part puts on an act as well, claiming he'd been about to send some men out to assist them after hearing about the attack. He sends the majority of the soldiers away from the palace so that he can gain control inside, while Saralegui leads Yuuri's group on a tour of the castle and explains the history between their countries. How Small Shimaron was still newly independent after having managed to separate from Large Shimaron under King Gilbert's rule, who had fought in the same human/demon war that Yuuri's bodyguard Conrart had. He blames the unease in the country on leftover tension between the races from that war, and Yuuri instantly sympathizes with his situation and becomes very friendly with him (much to the dismay of Yuuri's fiancé, Wolfram).

During a moment of rest, some of Yuuri's subjects wonder at Saralegui and Belias' appearance. They explain to Yuuri about the Shinzoku race and their country of Seisakoku, how the people had such powerful magic that they were thought of as gods and the country had become closed off and hidden away two thousand years earlier so that few knew of the Shinzoku people and even fewer had ever seen one. They mention how Saralegui's pale gold coloring resembles the Shinzoku, and Belias' dark hair and eyes made him look like a demon, but of course such things couldn't be true of the king of a human country and his personal bodyguard.

While taking Yuuri on a stroll through the palace gardens, some soldiers alert them that intruders had penetrated the grounds and that they should get to safety. Saralegui drags Yuuri away from his guards -- before their group is ambushed by rebel soldiers, and the Shin Makoku group certainly notices that little detail. The Maoh is as oblivious as ever and fails to realize the discrepancy, instead trying to comfort his new friend as Saralegui plays dumb and distressed over the attack and the possibility of Gerald's involvement in it. 

They hide in an empty coffin in the royal tomb, Yuuri taking that time to marvel over how pretty and nice-smelling Saralegui is while Sara instead asked about Yuuri's country. They pick the conversation up again after the rebel soldiers are scared off (by Gilbert's skeleton as they open the wrong coffin, something Saralegui evidently planned for) up in Saralegui's room. He asks about Yuuri's mother, admitting in a rare vulnerable moment that he never knew his own and that his father never told him anything about her. Yuuri is well-loved by everyone back in his castle, Saralegui points out, but the human king himself had always been alone. Yuuri promises that he would never have to be alone anymore now that they were friends, but the conversation is cut short as a group of rebel soldiers burst into the room. Saralegui pushes Yuuri out the window where he slides down a roof to safety, allowing himself to be captured alone.

This was his plan all along, as it turns out. Yuuri's group escapes while Gerald captures Belias with Saralegui held hostage, but even still Saralegui brazenly mouths off to Gerald. He guesses that the plan was to have him abdicate the throne due to "illness" and hand it over to Gerald, who would serve Large Shimaron and eventually allow Small Shimaron to come back into their power, while the true king would be quietly done away with. At this point, Saralegui reveals a power of hypnosis that he uses on Gerald to make him leave the room for the time being. As he expected, Yuuri's group stages a rescue, getting help from a lord still loyal to Saralegui, and Yuuri uses this as evidence that Sara isn't alone after all.

Large Shimaron had already heard of the Maoh's presence by the point, and sent representatives to look into these rumors. Yuuri's assistants are reluctant to just leave, thinking that Saralegui will simply help Large Shimaron organize an ambush for them as soon as they're out of earshot. So instead, he organizes for them to hide in the throne room while he greets the Large Shimaron representatives, claiming the Maoh's group hadn't been there at all. But this is just to keep their trust, and he had secretly used his power of hypnosis on Gerald earlier to have him barge into the throne room in the middle of the meeting and attack Saralegui. Yuuri, of course, jumps out to defend him, revealing his presence to Large Shimaron's representatives on his own. The representatives leave to report this to Lanzhil, and Saralegui insists that Shin Makoku group should escape and leave him to handle the situation. Yuuri refuses to abandon him and suggests that he's handed over to Large Shimaron and later rescued by his own subjects, so that Saralegui couldn't be held responsible.

Saralegui has a plan for this too, however. They meet Large Shimaron's forces in a large field, and while Saralegui escorts Yuuri to the enemy side, an arrow is unexpectedly shot at the demon king. Saralegui pushes him aside and takes the arrow in his place. He'd arranged for Belias to stealthily shoot the arrow from a hidden location, trusting his bodyguard to not kill him, so that he could kill roughly three birds with one stone. The Shin Makoku group assumes the arrow was an assassination attempt on Yuuri's life by Large Shimaron and that Saralegui had selflessly protected him. Yuuri goes berserk and destroys Large Shimaron's forces with his power as the Maoh. Saralegui survives, of course, with no one but Conrart suspicious of Belias' involvement in it all, and after Yuuri's group escapes the country, Saralegui reports to Large Shimaron's representatives that the arrow must have been a plot of the demons, trying to kill him for assisting Large Shimaron. To each side, he appears to be a proven ally, and he'd managed to weaken Lanzhil's army in the same move.

Some time passes, and Conrart is sent to Small Shimaron where Saralegui claims to have arranged for a meeting between him and Lanzhil, but surprise, the arrangements "aren't finished yet" and Conrart is left locked in a guest room in Small Shimaron while Saralegui accompanies the Large Shimaron navy to attack Shin Makoku. Through a teleportation accident, Yuuri ends up on Saralegui's ship and on the spot, Saralegui decides to use this sudden appearance to his advantage. He takes Yuuri out onto the ship deck and hypnotizes him into unleashing the Maoh's power and destroying Large Shimaron's fleet, coming very close to killing Lanzhil -- which would have only served Saralegui's purposes, as it turns out he's after Large Shimaron's throne himself.

Conrart escapes Small Shimaron after realizing Saralegui's deception and goes around Large Shimaron saving the citizen's from Lanzhil's tyranny. That chaos works well for Saralegui, but he couldn't risk someone else claiming that throne in his place -- someone like Conrart, who had a legitimate claim and was being lauded as the people's savior. So he sends Belias to capture Conrart, knowing his bodyguard had been craving a duel with the other swordsman. Belias, however, allows himself to be captured by Shin Makoku.

Visibly upset for once upon hearing the news of Belias' loss and subsequent capture, Saralegui travels to Shin Makoku to pick up his bodyguard. Upon meeting Yuuri at the docks, he plays sweet and innocent as if he hadn't recently tricked the pacifistic Yuuri into destroying a fleet of ships. The Maoh suggests they take a private carriage back together and waits until they have some privacy to confront him about the matter, saying that he's angry but he'll still trust Saralegui no matter what happens, because they're friends. Saralegui seems shocked for a moment, but then happily hugs Yuuri, evidently pleased to find Yuuri wouldn't abandon him even after he'd done something so terrible. He goes to Belias after a more formal meeting in the Maoh's throne room, good mood gone and irritated at Belias sneaking into Shin Makoku on his own, and says they'll talk about it once they return home. Belias, however, refuses to leave.

That night, Alazon invades Shin Makoku's castle, magically putting most of the castle to sleep and attempting to leave with Yuuri. The group Small Shimaron had rescued them from back in Caloria was hers, as it turns out, as she was seeking Seisakoku's Holy Sword. Having found it, she needed a powerful half-blood to harness its power and save her country, like the half-demon and half-human Yuuri. Belias bursts out of his cell, the release of power dispelling the glamour that darkened his hair and eye color from the same pale gold as Saralegui and Alazon, and goes to interrupt the scene. But Saralegui comes upon them all, and after Alazon recognizes him and flees, he correctly guesses that she was his mother.

With everyone all sat down to figure out what had just happened, Belias explains how Gilbert and Alazon met; how Gilbert and Saralegui were sent away; and how he had gone with Alazon, his sister, to find the Holy Sword. Her methods had become more and more cold, however, and eventually Belias left her to go find his nephew in Small Shimaron.

All that worked out, Saralegui again requests that Small Shimaron and Shin Makoku create an alliance. However, he explains how he plans to take Large Shimaron's throne once Lanzhil is kicked off, all the other candidates already disposed of and Conrart with no intention of leaving Shin Makoku, and asks for Shin Makoku to turn a blind eye while he works to unify Shimaron. It would work in their favor as well, he points out, as he and Yuuri would then control the largest parts of the human and demon lands and could create a lasting peace.

Belias suggests they leave for Small Shimaron as soon as possible, beginning to speak of Alazon's relation with him, but Saralegui says simply that he never had a mother from the beginning, and they remain. Alazon comes again to meet with the Maoh properly and ask for his assistance, with Yuuri's subjects present as well as Saralegui and Belias. But when Yuuri accepts her proposal and she moves to hand him the Holy Sword, Saralegui decides that he won't let her have Yuuri and pushes his way in, snatching the sword away himself. Its power suddenly goes nuts, as Saralegui, a half-blood himself, turns out to be its true wielder. He briefly tries to turn it on Alazon in a fit of rage when she refuses to acknowledge him as just as worthy as Yuuri, but the Maoh stops him before things can escalate. Saralegui instead teleports away using the sword's power, Belias attempting to catch him before he disappears and ending up in a random spot halfway across Shin Makoku's capital.

Still emotionally unstable, Saralegui comes across Geneus, an ex-servant of his mother, in an alleyway, and gives him the sword's power so that he could get revenge on her for both of them. Geneus wreaks havoc on the city with the Holy Sword's power, and that same uncontrolled power nearly kills Saralegui, but Alazon steps in the way at the last moment just as Belias arrives. She urges him to save Saralegui, and he covers Saralegui while Alazon is overcome by the sword's energy. O nce the dust has cleared he runs to his sister's side where she laid slumped against the side of a building, bloody-faced. Saralegui approaches the scene after a moment, stunned and in disbelief at the idea that his mother would have saved him and insisting that it must be a lie, but she weakly reaches for him with a smile before her hand drops, too far gone already. Yuuri and the Original King manage to subdue Geneus while Belias tries and fails to heal his sister, and the Holy Sword's power rains down on the city. Saralegui charges the sword again with that same power, using it to heal his mother.

Yuuri is still unconscious some days after the battle, his magical energy exhausted, and Saralegui volunteers to use the Holy Sword's power to heal him as well. Some of Yuuri's subjects resist at first, still unwilling to trust him, but eventually they relent and Yuuri is woken up. Saralegui is drained himself by the effort, but Belias steadies him and Sara simply smiles and says that it was his atonement. Yuuri goes to meet with Alazon now that both of them have recovered, and she laments how her country is apparently fated to die, but Saralegui interrupts to say that he will use the Holy Sword's power to revive Seisakoku. Not for her sake, of course, but as a favor from Small Shimaron to Seisakoku that he will see repaid.

Saralegui says farewell to Yuuri, their relationship repaired if somewhat more honest now, and Saralegui teases him that he should be careful around ambitious men like him. He travels to Seisakoku with his mother, returning the Holy Sword's power to the country with a quick but formal ceremony, and he turns to leave the moment it's over, Belias following after him. However, he pauses near the exit, just long enough to say that he'll return at some point, as it's the country of his birth. He leaves it at that, heading out as Alazon sheds quiet, grateful tears. 

Personality: 

By all outward appearances, Saralegui is just the young and charismatic king of the country of Small Shimaron. He's intelligent and fair in his rule despite his age, and well-liked by his people. He's kind and charming and strives for peace, the sort of king that really cares about his people, rather than just enjoying the luxury that such power brings.

In reality, however, Saralegui is manipulative and scheming. He plays nice with others to keep up a good reputation, because it's that sort of thing that helps him most in the cutthroat politics of his world. Saralegui doesn't shy away from using others to accomplish his goals, and he's both intelligent enough and powerful enough to get away with it. "Powerful" in this case referring less to his rank and more to the hypnotic magic he can work with his eyes. He doesn't even need that much of the time though, more interested in the challenge of going without, or doing things the more complicated way, such as in the incident where he arranged for himself to be hit by an arrow apparently intended for Yuuri in order to gain his trust. When asked by Belias why he was going so far when he could simply use his powers for the same purpose, Saralegui had simply answered that it was more fun going without. He's extremely intelligent, plotting moves out far in advance and predicting the moves on others accurately in order to make all his plotting work, and with his hypnotic abilities to fall back on, he's willing to make extremely risky gambles that always seem to work out for him in the end.

It isn't a lie that he cares for his country, but even that has a selfish root -- a need to be a greater king than his father was, to be acknowledged and loved and respected and feared by everyone because his father would barely even look at him. He has something of an abandonment complex, between his father's lack of care and his mother having been entirely absent from his life. No one is nice to others without wanting something from them, as far as he's concerned, and the concept of love is a pretty lie. How could he believe in something like that, after all, when his own parents, the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally and before all others, wanted nothing to do with him? 

On a casual level, he ranges from genuinely affable to incredibly two-faced. He's very focused on appearances and often lies and sticks to polite surface interactions for the sake of maintaining that persona of a sweet and pleasant young ruler. But it's not as if everything he does always has such ulterior motives. He's very much capable of being friendly and getting along with others, and with all the societal rules and niceties out of the way he can actually be pretty great for intelligent conversation or flirting or joking around. After the whole revelation about his mother while at Blood Pledge Castle, with all the scheming and deception behind them, he actually manages to have a simple, pleasant day with Yuuri and Greta while getting a tour of the castle and being introduced to Yuuri's various friends. As long as things remain on a lighthearted surface level, he can be fairly genuine and likable without issue -- it's getting deeper than that that starts opening up a can of worms. He has some intense trust issues as well, so he lies and manipulates rather than put his faith into others, and his pride can just as easily get in the way of such relationships.

The only person he trusts absolutely his his bodyguard, Belias, and that's a trust built up over more than a decade of loyal servitude. Had Belias entered his life later it might have been too late, with Saralegui already too suspicious of others in general to allow anyone that close, but Belias came at a critical point, when Saralegui was still young and desperate enough to cling to whatever attention he was given. Belias is the only person he truly trusts, and he takes that trust to an extreme, even fearlessly putting his life in his bodyguard's skilled hands, as in that example with the arrow. For everyone else, however, he's skeptical of others as a rule, and prone to suspecting others of having ulterior motives than simply accepting the kindness of a stranger.

Despite everything he's done, Saralegui isn't exactly a villain. He does bad things, sometimes cruel things, but his intentions are often good. His world peace scheme, for example, wherein all his machinations to deal with Large Shimaron and take over as its king would supposedly lead to a situation where he and Yuuri could set an example for the rest of the world as allied leaders of the two greatest nations. He has a very "ends justify the means" attitude, which is why he could so easily trick his only friend, the pacifistic Yuuri, into destroying entire armies for him on two separate occasions -- it might hurt Yuuri, yes, but it gets rid of the threat of Large Shimaron's forces without having to send a single soldier into battle, and if it manages to kill off Large Shimaron's king in the process, then that just means he can claim the throne himself and definitively end all the fighting between humans and demons.

Abilities:

~He has a power that allows him to more or less hypnotize other people. It seems to require eye contact (at least initially) and as he always removes his glasses before using it, most likely can't penetrate even transparent surfaces. The commands given don't have to be verbal, and resistance to them is based on willpower, but it should be noted that the ability is very powerful, with only the Demon King ever being shown actually breaking free from it. He doesn't seem to like abusing this power, however, as it's only ever brought out in situations he can't somehow manipulate through other means.

~If he were to ever gain possession of it here, he would have the ability to use the Holy Sword of Seisakoku to its full potential, which involves a sort of life magic that spontaneously creates plantlife in great abundance, can heal others, and provides vitality to an entire country.

~Other than those, he has no special abilities other than his charisma and cunning.