Ayato Quinten

> "This world is a never-ending spiral of back and forth war. If one side wins, it will aggravate the other. If one side loses, they'll only hit harder next time. That's what you can't seem to understand, Jenkins. Nobody wins a war through peace and kindness. You can't truly end a war without killing one side, so it doesn't get back up."
>
> Ayato tells Chris that the Aonik war cannot end without casualties. Book 1 - The Beginning of the End.

Ayato Quinten is the only son of Blake Quinten and Mei Quinten, and an important side character in the Aonik Archives.

## **Appearance**

### Normal

Ayato has messy black hair that looks like it hasn't touched a comb in weeks, empty blue eyes that don't reflect light like normal eyes do, and fairly tanned skin that is covered in bruises and rashes. Chris notes in one of his conversations with Ayato about Blake that Ayato's eyes make him look like an empty shell devoid of emotion, but even though Ayato doesn't understand his emotions, Chris knows that Ayato is more emotional than any of the other members of the group. Ayato has thin lips and always has grey scars under his eyes that make him look like he is always tired. He usually wears a weathered leather jacket that he stole from Blake when he was younger, and Blake didn't seem to notice.

### Link

In his link form, Ayato has wider eyes with red irises, something that the other characters have never seen before, and his hair goes slightly more grey than usual. His eyes are like this because of an experiment done by Blake where Blake was testing the capabilities of the link. Ayato underwent a series of physical tests in his link form which caused bleeding in his eyes.

## Personality

Ayato isn't able to properly feel and understand emotion because of the torture he faced at Blake's hand all his life, and his mother leaving him so he could grow up to become independent on others. He feels guilty whenever he can't feel emotions like others, like several times in school where someone would get hurt and Ayato would wonder why he couldn't sympathize with them. After joining Chris' team, Ayato finds comfort in being around them. Ayato wants to be trusted by the team, and apologizes over and over for his attack to win their trust, despite how much he hates apologizing. Ayato is extremely grateful to the group for allowing him to have a second chance after his attack. When he meets up with the team he immediately tells them his plan, thinking that him having a plan will give the group a reason to trust him easier, thinking that for real relationships to form, the two people involved have to do each other favors to stay in a good relationship. When his plan to attack Blake fails, he is scared that the group will lose their trust in him, once again thinking that if he didn't prove useful there would be no reason for anyone to like him. Felix is the only one that has problems trusting Ayato after this incident, and Chris convinces Ayato that the failure of his plan wasn't his fault. Ayato isn't easily intimidated and is strongly opinionated towards many things, willing to go to extreme lengths to protect those he loves and to bring about his form of justice. He is a good liar around those he doesn't trust or those he dislikes, but when around people he knows or appreciates, he finds it more difficult to lie to them, either out of guilty or knowing that they will see through the lies. Although he tries to conceal his strength around his friends, he can either be as kind or terrifying as he wants to.

## Goal

Ayato's goal in the beginning of the series is to escape from Blake's continual abuse and gain the trust of Chris and his team, so he can protect himself from Blake. Ayato hates Blake more than anyone else and wants more than anything to see his defeat. Throughout the series, Ayato's goals shift from just defeating Blake to protecting Hazel and the rest of the team, after he realizes how important he really is to the team's success in fighting Skarra, and after Liam and Felix make Ayato promise to protect Hazel.

## Fears

Ayato's biggest fear is that he won't be trusted by those around him because of his background and his connection to Blake. He wants more than anything to be trusted by those around him, and being rejected by those around him reminds him of how he was bullied for being different when he was younger. Ayato describes being excluded as a feeling of emptiness, like a part of your soul is drifting away from the rest of it, similar to how an excluded person is always left far away from others.

Ayato has an extreme fear of the dark, which he tried to drill out of himself when he was younger by forcing himself to stay in dark spaces, to no avail. Ayato sees himself as a coward for being scared of something as simple as the dark, but every time he is surrounded by darkness it reminds him of the dark rooms he was left in by Blake while being experimented on and tortured.

## Family

Ayato's biological father is Blake Quinten, who is one of the Nine Aoniks. For this reason, his powers are extremely strong compared to other normal power users. His mother is Mei Quinten, a skilled swordswoman from Okinawa Island. His parents met at a restaurant and decided to meet up. Blake didn't tell Mei about his involvement with the Aoniks until Ayato was born. Ayato has two cousins on Blake's side of the family, Alli Quinten and Connor Quinten. Alli tries not to involve herself in anything to do with the Aoniks but always ends up involved because of her family relations with Blake. Connor, on the other hand, is eager to fight at all times and tries anything in his power to help Ayato and the team defeat Skarra, despite not having any powers himself.

## Powers

### Electricity Manipulation

Ayato Quinten can use Electricity Manipulation, a common power that allows it users to manipulate any form of electricity. At base level, Electricity Manipulation isn't very useful, and can't be used in combat as well as most other powers. However, as the series progresses and Ayato becomes stronger, he is able to use much more advanced forms of Electricity Manipulation which are on the level of some of the strongest powers out there.

Ayato is also able to use some of Blake Quinten's powers, because of the artificial link he shares with him. Ayato is the only person who is able to withstand sharing a link with Blake, because they share the same blood. Even Blake's brother isn't able to use the link because Blake's Aonik powers don't run through his brother's blood.

### Matter Transmutation (Basic)

Ayato is able to use an extremely basic form of Matter Transmutation, meaning he cannot mutate large objects or large areas, and this basic form of Matter Transmutation uses a significant amount of energy, meaning he can't use it for as much time.

## Story

### Birth

When Ayato was born, it was revealed that he had some noticeable weaknesses due to Blake's power in his bloodline, such as weaker eyes and several mental troubles such as attachment difficulties and anxiety. His parents argued for a long while after he was born, about whether he would actually prove useful to them or not.

Blake wanted Ayato to serve Skarra, but Ayato's issues proved a problem. Blake wasn't sure whether Ayato would be able to fight, and as a result, considered him useless. However, Mei, who only then found out about the Aoniks and didn't want anything to do with them, didn't let Blake throw Ayato away, seeing Ayato as just a human, not a weapon.

### Growing up

As Ayato grew up, he was continually abused by Blake for not being strong. Ayato saw this as completely normal, because he wasn't allowed to have any access to the outside world and wasn't allowed to interact with anyone other than his parents. Mei always tried to help Ayato out of scary situations with Blake, but she wasn't always there to help him when he needed. Ayato began to hate himself because he was never good enough to do anything, and always insulted and called a weakling by his father.

Ayato became very clingy to his mother, because she was the only person who was kind to him. He never left her side and always tried to defend her when she got into arguments with Blake. Eventually, Mei saw that Ayato was almost *too* attached to her, and she began to worry that if Ayato always depended on her, he would never learn to protect himself. When Ayato turned five years old, his mother took him on his first trip to Okinawa. She showed him the many festivals and the beauties of the outside world. She told him all about her life in Okinawa and told him that he should stand up for himself more, because he is a lot stronger than he thinks. Mei tells Ayato that she would be leaving on a short journey and she would see him soon, before taking him back to Blake's house and leaving forever.

After weeks of waiting for his mother to return home, Ayato became more and more convinced she had left him on purpose. This broke him, as his only hope was now gone, nowhere to be found.

When Ayato turned six years old, Blake finally allowed him to go to school, but Ayato was excluded and made fun of for being different.

### Link Experiments

After months, Ayato learnt to protect himself and trust nobody but himself. He became a warrior, brainwashed by Blake. When Ayato turned fourteen, Blake decided he was the correct age to begin experimenting with the link. Ayato went through days of torture and tests, but eventually was able to withstand using the link with Blake.

### Link Battle

In his debut chapter, Ayato attacks the team at Shadow's house while he is under the control of the link with Blake, meaning that it wasn't really him but rather Blake. Towards the end of the fight Ayato freaks out and his eyes start changing colour as he starts to break the link, but in the end he fails to sever the link and has to teleport away.

### Post Link Battle

In the next few chapters, Ayato returns to the team, this time not under control of the link, and apologizes for trying to attack them the last time they met. He explains that he also despises Blake and wants to help them in their mission to defeat Skarra. He tells the team his plan to infiltrate Blake's base, which involves him pretending to have captured Chris, and the team suddenly attacking Blake. When the team fails, Ayato fears that he has lost the trust of Chris and the others, also fearing for their safety after their battle against Blake.

Ayato asks Sasaki Ina, one of Shadow's close friends from Japan, if she knows his mother, but Ina says that she doesn't, disappointing Ayato. After Ina leaves, healing the group and answering their questions, Felix freaks out and says that nobody can trust Ayato, thinking that the falure of the plan was exactly what Ayato wanted. Felix's suspicions annoyed Ayato but at the same time, Ayato couldn't blame Felix, because Ayato's trust issues were just as bad as Felix's. Felix leaves in a hurry, claiming to feel sick after using Clairvoyance. Ayato explains what the Gargantuan is and how it works. The team presses him with questions, like why he didn't tell them about the Gargantuan earlier. Ayato says he thought the Gargantuan was too badly damaged to be used in combat, so he assumed Blake had abandoned the project. Ayato tells the team that the Gargantuan could be heading towards the Aonik Crystal. After the team asks Ayato what the Aonik Crystal is and what it can do, Ayato says he doesn't know and only suggested the idea because he heard Blake talking about the crystal very often.

When Shadow, Liam, Ruth, Damon, Jake, Chris, Julia, Erica and Hazel decide to watch a movie that night, Ayato excludes himself from the group, blaming it on him having a headache. In reality, Ayato didn't want to be around anyone, disappointed and ashamed after leading the team to near death in the battle against Blake.

The team crosses paths with the Gargantuan as it heads towards the coast, and during the fight, Ayato is able to point out the Gargantuan's weaknesses, which helps the team a lot during the battle.

## Relationships

### Love interests

#### Hazel Qzoro

When Ayato and Hazel meet, Hazel refuses to trust Ayato because of their fight. She sees him as nothing more than an enemy and doesn't give him a chance to speak whenever the two are in a conversation. This is mostly because of Felix's harsh reactions towards Ayato influencing her own thoughts. When Hazel eventually decides to talk to Ayato, the two get to know each other, and Hazel is shocked at how emotional Ayato can get about the smallest things, and realizes that there is much more to Ayato's personality than meets the eye. Ayato is intrigued by Hazel's skills and how good she is at talking to people. The two get along very well when they decide to talk to each other more, and Hazel even develops feelings for Ayato, although she doesn't realize it.

### Friends

#### Christopher Jenkins

Since before Ayato met Chris he was intrigued by his resurrection ability, and questioned whether this ability was real since he had only heard about it from Blake's storytelling, which Ayato rarely trusted. When Ayato met up with the group after he attacked them in his Link form, he apologized over and over to win their trust, and Chris was one of the first people in the group to trust Ayato. Ayato appreciated the fact that Chris was able to trust him when not many others could, but was also disappointed that Chris trusted people so easily. Chris' ability to trust people annoyed Ayato because of Ayato's own trust issues acting up when around him. Chris was also the one that teaches Ayato that real relationships don't require favors. While Ayato is strongly opposed to Chris' calm way of thinking at first, he learns from the others around him that Chris is right. Ayato also looks up to Chris for being able to stay happy through all that he has endured.