Souren Araya

is the main antagonist of Kara no Kyoukai, being the driving force behind the actions of the other antagonists.
==Profile==
===Background===
Souren was a former Buddhist monk hailing from Tamil Buddhism who has lived for around 300 years. He witnessed endless death, and this gave him the twisted purpose of finding a reason for human death. He was excommunicated by his master because he saw the Origin of people.
He later entered the Mage's Association Clock Tower in London with Touko Aozaki and Cornelius Alba, and their teacher was Inorai Valualeta Atroholm. At first, Touko and Araya took interest in each other as fellow countrymen and it started off with them exchanging views as two people with similar ideals. Though their paths differed, their relationship was that of rivals aiming toward the same goal. During their school days, Alba asked Touko and Araya for 100 Puppets to get his chocolate factory running to prevent it from going bankrupt.The BAMBOO BROOM DIARY - 2009/1/27: Skipping updates is like fire. Souren Araya attempted to reach Akasha by tracing the roots of the soul, something that is there but not there, in order to reach a group consciousness.
Image:Araya Souren past.png|Araya witnessing countless death.
Image:Touko araya alba photo.png|Photograph of Araya, Touko and Cornelius when they were in the Clock tower.
Image:Lio-movie-7-21.png|Araya encountering Lio.
Image:Kirie and Araya.png|Araya encountering Kirie.
Image:Araya and Fujino.png|Araya encountering Fujino.
Personally interested in the Demon Hunter Organization families, he especially set his sights on Shiki Ryougi, with the intention of using his knowledge of her Origin of "Nothingness" as his last resort as a means of reaching the Origin.
During 1995, he encounters Lio Shirazumi with the initial intention of using whatever knowledge he could attain from his Origin, after prompting Lio to awaken his Origin of "Consumption". Lio was the first chess piece Souren Araya prepared, and also the one he saved for last. Having nearly driven Shiki to her death during the 1995-1996 murders, Araya stopped Lio from conducting his murders in order to prevent him from causing further problems for his plan. It is at this point that Araya deemed Lio to be a failure, resorting to using other powered individuals to divert Shiki's attention while keeping Lio at bay.
Araya later approached Fujino Asagami and Kirie Fujou, pressing them to awaken their innate abilities. He planned Fujino and Kirie to fight against Shiki in hopes that they would be able to surpass Shiki's inner potential, but also in part so that the Counter Force would overlook his own operations by being distracted towards the conflict created between the three.
====Ogawa Apartment Complex====
In his attempt to reach the Akasha, he performed an experiment on an apartment complex in Kayamihama, Mifune City. He used Touko's architecture blueprint to create the Ogawa Apartment. The apartment walls had been inscribed with strange patterns which caused people to go into depression leading them to become insane thus driving them to their deaths.
He collaborated with Cornelius who was responsible for the system at the Ogawa apartment and in return; he'll help kill Touko. Araya created the Apartment Complex to create a cyclical loop in which the Puppet residents repeat their last day before death as a means to discover an access to the Swirl of the Root.
Tomoe Enjou was able to escape from the repetitive spiral, something that Araya didn't expect. Before Tomoe left, Araya supposedly implanted an unconscious imprinting in this Puppet to have an interest in Shiki. He plans to retrace the path of the Swirl of the Root by using Shiki's Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. To do so, Araya plans to transplant his brain into Shiki's body.
===Appearance===
Souren appears to be a man of around forty-five years old, but he has lived for hundreds of years. He has a face carved with grief and an unusually robust body for a magus, characteristics that exert immense pressure on his opponents to the point of seeming almost nauseating.
Araya Souren early sketches.png|Early Sketch
Araya Souren sketch.png|Newer Sketches
Paradox paradigm 2.png|Araya as he appears in the Kara no Kyoukai novel
Souren Araya by Takeuchi.png|Araya in Tsukihime Blue Book, by Takashi Takeuchi.
Ufotable Araya Souren.png|Ufotable Character Sheet
Threefold Barrier.png| in Fate/Grand Order, illustrated by Takahashi Takuro.
===Personality===
Araya is a tragic figure. Originally a wandering monk, his inability to save the lives of so many gave way to depression. His faith in humanity nearly crushed, he had decided to collect knowledge surrounding the finality of lives as a way of bringing some form of meaning or purpose to the endless cycle of "pointless" deaths around him. Despite his future goals stemming from this exact mentality and reasoning, over many years he would come to forget this, only finally recalling it before his death.
Having become a magus, he had fully internalized what is normally a common goal in magecraft: to locate the Swirl of the Root. Unlike standard magi, he had fully accepted this goal as his true calling, in which he intends to reach the Origin as a means of bringing about the destruction of reality and in doing so, the end of humanity. He believes that by bringing about the destruction of reality he will be able to govern its remnants, believing that it would allow him to view the records of every single individual human's life on Earth. By gaining this power and governance over reality, he wishes to pinpoint what he would consider to be the happiest moment (or at least the peak point) of every single human during their lifetime, with the intention of bringing a sense of contentment and finality in his mind. Araya literally described this goal as seeking "true wisdom within [himself]".
Despite appearing always calm and collected, Araya was not above masking his own true emotions. He kept an image of indifference as a means of preventing his opponents from recognizing his moments of failure and weakness. He is often mentioned to have an imposing appearance; with Kirie viewing him as a man surrounded by a cold dark void, and with Fujino actually feeling fear towards his presence despite rarely ever doing so towards another person. Touko herself commented that he was "a man of hell". She also describes him as a man who's brash nature lends itself to making mistakes in his methodology yet his strong confidence is what allows him to surpass anyone else.
Whilst seemingly shown as acting out of genuine kindness based on his actions towards Lio, Fujino, and Kirie, these were done for his own self-benefit as Araya was only concerned with using others in order to reach his goal. For example, he lied to Kirie about being her father's acquaintance and helped pay Kirie’s hospital bills after her family died, in order to prepare everything for victory. Although Araya put great efforts in his plan, he couldn't predict Shiki falling in love with a normal person, or the loss of the first person he scouted, or Tomoe Enjou's existence; who caused his downfall.
Though it seems that he hates humans, Touko refutes that notion, claiming that he is only infatuated with the ideal image of humanity and unable to tolerate the humans of the ugly and shameful world. He is not doing it for the sake of humanity, but rather for his delusions of a non-existent ideal. Filling the void left by the hollowness within him, he is an eccentric collector of death.
===Development===
The title of the work, , reflects Araya's character role as he symbolizes the paradoxical spiral, that which divides the inside from the outside and the most important event in the story. He embodies the "accident of not knowing what is true and false", and the "accident of not learning the truth that has become common knowledge". Resulting from that, it was determined to be absolute that the paradox would persist until the very end. Lio's role as an antagonist did not fit within the full scope of Kara no Kyoukai, which served as more of Araya's story surrounding his manipulations. As such, Lio's role was supposed to end before Araya had presented himself as the "the evil mastermind". However, in order to provide a resolution to the story of Mikiya Kokutou and Shiki Ryougi, Lio's role as the true serial killer was a vital factor in his becoming the series' final antagonist.
Kinoko Nasu jokingly blames Araya for the American subprime crisis and the delay of DDD Volume 3 sale.
==Role==
===Kara no Kyoukai===
====Chapter 4: The Hollow Shrine====
Before Araya left the hospital, Araya was using an artificial body passing as a doctor in the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine. The ghost that attacked Shiki when she awoke from her coma was Araya's doing.
====Chapter 3: Remaining Sense of Pain====
In the anime adaption, Shiki received Araya's ID card from Touko.
====Chapter 5: Paradox Spiral====
In November 1998, Tomoe brings Shiki to his apartment where he supposedly killed his parents. However Shiki revealed the true nature of the apartment to Tomoe and revealed the real corpses of his family. While they were in Tomoe's real apartment, they were attacked by reanimated corpses.
Araya meets Shiki the second time when she kills all the reanimated corpses. Shiki had difficulties reading his death lines because of his Śarīra. Araya subdued Shiki by imprisoning her within a barrier isolated from space. He allowed Tomoe to escape because he knew it would be a matter of time for him to expire.
When Cornelius was knocked out by Touko, Araya intervened and faced Touko. Touko seemingly defeated him with her Projection Machine but Touko soon realized the Araya she defeated was a Puppet. Touko was later incapacitated by the real Araya when he pulled out her heart from behind. However she did not die as Araya kept her in a frozen state: he decapitated her and stored her head in a jar. He didn't kill her because he knew that the next Touko would awake when the current one died. He destroyed Touko's Projection machine by destroying her briefcase. He handed over Touko's head to Cornelius.
When Tomoe entered Araya's workshop through the sewers and found his original brain, Araya revealed Tomoe's true nature as a Puppet. Araya claims that Tomoe's love for Shiki is merely fabricated and that he simply imprinted such a desire in Tomoe's mind. Araya taunts Tomoe to confront him where he'll be waiting at the 10th floor.
As Tomoe takes the elevator to confront Araya, he grabs Shiki's knife. Tomoe finds Araya standing before him. He confirms his determination to kill Araya for his sake and his parents' death, claiming that they weren't sinful enough to die in such a cruel way. He charges head-on but Araya uses his Bounded Field to stall him. Tomoe's limbs are slowly torn away as he manages to stab Araya in the chest. He is eventually killed by Araya's power, commanding Tomoe's body to cease existence. Araya found out that Alba died when he met the next Touko.
As Touko provided first aid for Mikaya, Araya asked Touko if she wanted to resume the fight but Touko claimed it was foolish to fight him again inside the building even if she has a chance of winning with her Sealed Box. Araya thought Touko might rely on the Counter Force and told Touko about his barrier alienating it from the outside world. Touko laughs at Araya for his mistake to imprison Shiki within a barrier isolated from space rather than locking her physically. She revealed to Araya that Shiki cut down his barrier, which caused him to suffer pain from inside as the Ogawa Apartment is linked to his body. Due to Tomoe leaving behind Shiki's katana, , inside the Ogawa Apartment's elevator, Shiki is able to easily break free upon finally gaining consciousness, and confront and outmatch Araya in battle. Araya realizes that Shiki wasn't using her full potential against Fujino Asagami.
Araya, after jumping from the apartment, tries to crush her by collapsing the apartment complex, but Shiki reaches him as he falls and stabs him on the Line of Death in his left shoulder. Araya's last Puppet body is thus destroyed, having sustained more damage than it can take. Before landing on the floor, he activates a Bounded Field to protect himself and thus saves Shiki as well. Touko has a final conversation with Araya, where Touko asks why he was obsessed with the Swirl of the Root. Araya reveals that after witnessing so many humans die, he wanted to preserve the entirety of humanity in a record. Touko states that his downfall was caused by Tomoe's love for his family as well as his breaking out of the cycle created by Araya. Before his death, Touko surprises Araya by revealing that he shares his name with the collective will of humanity, Alaya. After she asks if he is going to continue seeking the Swirl of the Root, Araya says that he doesn't have any more spare bodies and dies, although he says that when his soul returns to the material world, he will continue his research even if he is alone after hundreds of years. With Araya's death, Lio was able to realize his own desire.
====Chapter 6: Oblivion Recorder====
It was revealed by Satsuki Kurogiri that he was contacted by Araya to help awaken Shiki's forgotten memories.
==Abilities==
Araya, as someone who's lived for centuries by using different bodies as containers for his soul, can be considered more a monster or a living dead person than a human. Even outside of his Bounded Field, he has an incredibly powerful body that is able to punch through concrete and dodge bullets after they have already been fired. is stated to be his special move.
===Magecraft===
Araya can be considered an average Magus at face value with thirty Magic Circuits, which is not many compared to a first rate Magus like Cornelius Alba. He can still be considered a genius with overwhelming power resulting from the anguish that he ceaselessly accumulated through the ages. He is highly skilled in the creation of Bounded Fields. Souren has the ability to see people's Origin and is capable of awakening one to their Origin, however he must receive consent from the person beforehand. The Origin that he has is , and his awakening of it has made him extremely difficult to kill, since something that is already "still" supposedly cannot be killed. This makes his Lines of Death difficult to see even without considering the Śarīra in his left arm, but he still has very faint Lines of Death around his body and a cluster of Lines of Death appearing to be a point on his chest, showing that he is still able to die. Touko believes that he differs from Magi who would fade away should they ever touch the Root, and that at least some shade of himself will remain in the world and possibly bring great destruction.
He has a , the sacred remains of the Buddha, embedded within his left arm. It belonged to an enlightened one who achieved "becoming extinguished, alive", so it has a resistance to the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. The ability to kill it by slashing the Lines of Death would require Shiki to decipher "advanced Lines of Death" that are levels higher than the normal Concept of Death, so she is unable to view such vulnerable parts by looking upon it. They are still just bones in the physical sense, so they are susceptible to burning to ashes and the force of a large impact is able to destroy them even with their natural protection.
He is effectively immortal in a sense due to his consciousness surviving even if his body should rot and crumble to dust. He differs from a Puppet Master who prepares bodies they create in advance in case they should die, and instead switches to a spare Puppet body that slowly acclimates to his soul. Unlike Touko, who has to die before switching to her next body, Araya has never experienced death and instead moves his consciousness to another body. The Magic Circuits, the wiring moving his physical form, reaches through the body and sublimates the temporary body into the real thing. With much experience in bringing physical bodies under his control, having gone through many bodies in his life, he can complete the process in half a day. He is a solitary existence, so he cannot flee if his body is destroyed, though after his last Puppet body is destroyed, both he and Touko note that he will eventually return in time since Shiki's Mystic Eyes of Death Perception only destroyed Araya's body and not his existence itself, due to having struck a different Line of Death. 
====Bounded Field====
Despite being average as a Magus, his talents relating to Bounded Field construction is exceptional. They are what divides that which is inside from the outside, so he must first complete himself to construct a complete world from his own body. He has no exceptional talents, but was able to become a first-class Bounded Field master by completing himself through the accumulation of ages and sheer determination. Normally something impossible, his accomplishments are like achieving the pinnacle within a field while being completely oblivious of even the name of this subject field.
RokudouKyoukaiActivation.gif| Rokudou Kyoukai Activation in the Movie.
RokudouKyoukaiBinding.gif.
He personally carries , a three layered Bounded Field that completely surrounds his person and hides his presence. All those who enter the perimeter of the outer field are completely frozen in place in accordance with his Origin of "Stillness", and as it is mobile, something normally impossible to accomplish, he can freely use it as a weapon. It is constantly crumbling with the passage of time, and it takes a length of time for Souren to recreate it. He calls the names , , , , , and when he uses it.
TheApartmentComplexMovie.webp|The Apartment Complex in the Movie.
Shuku.gif|Shuku in the Movie .
He has also constructed , a Bounded Field that completely surrounds his Magical Workshop, the Ogawa Apartment Complex. The original architect was Touko Aozaki, and it is a shrine for the Taikyokuzu, the diagram of the supreme ultimate. The building can be called the embodiment of his internal world, very similar to the concept of a Reality Marble, which gives him complete control over its internal workings. Touko notes that the Bounded Field has left the realm of Magecraft and has already breached into the realm of Magic. Within the Ogawa Apartment Complex, he gains the ability of instant teleportation anywhere within his Bounded Field, omniscience of any occurrences within the building, and the ability to crush space itself, . When inside the Bounded Field, Touko states she feels as if she is inside Araya's body.
The building is a cylindrical ten story building with five rooms on the east and west sides. In order to create this Bounded Field, he collected 64 families and led them to 64 different types of death, symbolizing the 64 hexagrams. Eventually, this condensed into the eight trigrams, then the four phenomena, then the yin and yang (the Ryougi), creating an entirely new "world" separated from the world outside the Bounded Field. The building itself uses repetitive patterns and coloring in order to drive its residents to insanity and eventually murder and suicide. Afterwards, he removed their brains and created identical Puppet bodies for them to control. He used these bodies to create a “miniature world that concludes in a day”, where he would have all of the Puppets act out their daily lives, with each day concluding by having them kill each other.
Souren, hoping for their deaths to deviate from the previous days, revived the bodies by morning, where they would simply restart with the memories of the final day of their lives. The Puppets live on one side, and the other side, hidden by a rotating elevator, is used to store their original corpses. He manages to hide the massive experiment, which would normally cause suspicions from even the smallest irregularity and the trail of information in modern society, by making it out to be a normal apartment. The purpose is to have the building form a taiji, a graphical representation of the Yin-Yang theory, and with Shiki, another Taiji placed inside the Taiji of the building, Araya would be able to reach the Root.
Taijitu is a philosophy that originated in ancient China that attempts to capture the essence of everything on a conceptual level. Activity is defined as Yang, represented in the color white, and stillness is defined as Yin, represented in the color black. It symbolizes opposing concepts such as day and night, light and darkness, and male and female. At the same time, it can also be called a condensed version of the ever-changing, dynamic World. There exists a point of Yin within Yang and a point of Yang within Yin, indicating that the distinction between Yin and Yang is not absolute. In Onmyōdō, the separation of the Taiji as the Yin and Yang is called the Ryougi.
==References==
vi:Araya Souren
Category:Characters in Kara no Kyoukai
Category:Humans
Category:Clock Tower magi
Category:Clock Tower students
Category:Buddhists
Category:Automata, dolls and golems
Category:Introduced in 1998
Category:Voice - Jouji Nakata
Category:Japanese