Shiruka

Human form

*"There is only one true sin. It is the sin of powerlessness - to see death and despair around you, and to be unable to prevent him. All the world's sins are insignificant compared to this one."* - Shiruka.

**Shiruka** - formerly known as **Kuri-ma Shiruka** - was a Ritualist of the Kuri Clan before becoming a Demon God.

## Story

### Childhood and the End of Innocence

Shiruka was raised as an Exorcist (a demon-hunter) by his parents, Kuri-ma Katarina and Kuri-ma Lehrion, in the world of Mazdayana. He showed great talent and aptitude with rituals as well as a close-range fighter, making him a promising successor. He also had a certain interest for forbidden arts, which his parents strongly discouraged.

Shiruka's life took a brutal turn when his family attempted to neutralize the Demon God Sorath through a world-altering ritual, as Sorath was terrifying the world's population. The ritual took an abrupt end when Sorath broke free of his restraints and slaughtered Shiruka's family. Lehrion gave up on his life to perform a counter-ritual and briefly banish Sorath away, saving Shiruka's life before Sorath could reach him.

### Demon-Slayer Shiruka

Filled with vengeful trauma at the sight of his parents' slaughter, Shiruka started to walk down a dangerous path, breaking through the vault of cursed items seized by the Kuri and using them all to reinforce his body. He performed several painful and sacrificial rituals to enhance his power, not the least of which being the sacrifice of his True Name, becoming only "Shiruka".

With his newfound powers, Shiruka walked down the path of vengeance, slaughtering demons and using their remains as a beacon to attract Sorath once again, setting up a final battle with the Demon God. However, Sorath proved to be too powerful even for Shiruka's sacrificed existence.

Shiruka resigned himself to perform a last ritual just as Sorath attempted to kill him. With the **Thousand-Year Flesh Mausoleum** ritual, he caged Sorath within himself, at the price of his left arm, part of his sanity, his eternal Soul, and a curse of ruin upon all those who would love him. A ruin of a man, Shiruka had still succeeded in temporarily catching the demon god. Still, there was no glory to this act, and due to the fear of Mazdayana's people, he was forced into hiding.

### Love Found and Lost

Shiruka could not rest for long as even now, a strange individual known as the **Black King** attempted to profit from the chaos by conquering Mazdayana with an army of demon-possessed soldiers. Shiruka once again fought against them until he accidentally broke free a young girl named Layla of her demon's influence. Shiruka nursed her back to life and consciousness, and despite Layla's apparent lack of a soul, Shiruka trained and protected her.

Shiruka, eventually confronted the Black King known as Goetius and killed him as Goetius became a Blasphemy, an artificial Demon God. As Goetius died, he tore the fabric of reality around him, creating a portal to Hell threatening to devour everything. Shiruka was then confronted by Layla, her soul and memory returned, and as Goetius's daughter, she fought him to avenge her father's death.

This proved to be a lure, however, as Layla only feigned to attack him in order to throw herself in the portal to Hell as a sacrifice, sealing it away forever, and leaving Shiruka once again alone and haunted by his failure to save those around him.

### Game of Venatio

Soon after, Shiruka was chosen by Aurora as one of her pawns for her game on the Venatio. Shiruka was made to face the forces of evil, but he was only truly interested in eliminating the opposing Demon Lord, Shikeishuu, which he managed to seal away twice. Meanwhile, he started to form a bond of rivalry and camaraderie with another champion, Elfissia.

Shiruka however grew tired of dying and being resurrected from a Deity's entertainment, so when champion Xelias gave him a way to rebel against Aurora and her opponent Noctan, he agreed in a heartbeat. To help the group reach the gods, he fought Elfissia and defeated her one-on-one, as Elfissia was quick to side with the gods.

When the gods were finally defeated, Shiruka was made mortal again. He took that opportunity to feign betraying the forces of good before committing a double suicide with Shikeishuu, hoping to disappear forever with Sorath and Shikeishuu, neutralizing for good two threats to existence.

### Happiness Hypothesis

Still, Shiruka was made to survive by the Venatio's last miracle. Unhappy with such a "miracle" he kept wandering across different worlds, seeking demons - or death. During his travels, he encountered the young and lost Jida Zaporya, who sought to learn the arts of demon-controlling, and became a teacher and father-figure to him.

He eventually instead encountered the half-demon Celena Scarlet, whose past was most similar to his, on Ammarra. Despite initial hostility, the pair quickly came to love eachother, despite Shiruka attempting to distance himself from Celena - knowing that his curse would grant them no happy ending. He was sadly right, as one of Celena's past enemies, Merhan, found them and tortured Celena to bait Shiruka into coming to save her, then used her powers to make Shiruka succumb to Sorath.

### Demon God Shiruka

Sorath, now in control, forced Shiruka to torture the souls of his parents and family, and when Celena eventually died, he forced him to break her through rape and torture while he was still conscious. Eventually, however, the pair was saved by Jida as well as Sariel Tenkuro, who was helped by Celena in the past. The pair sealed away Sorath within Shiruka, allowing him to wake up.

Shiruka was still traumatized by the visions he saw, but Jida and Sariel helped him, and repressed Celena's memories, allowing the couple to progressively restart a normal life. Shiruka used his newfound privileges as a Demon God to free both his and Celena's parents from hell and give them back a normal life.

### Shiruka's Time

This victory was however short-lived, as a mysterious man destroyed Shiruka's Timeline, causing him, alongside those around him, to dive into the Empty Realm, where they found shelter on a deserted island. Shiruka used his powers to rebuild a refuge for them all, and the man, asking for forgiveness for his actions, revived Shiruka's daughter from the future Zhira Scarlet.

Eventually, when the Cheshire Isle was founded, Shiruka joined them, watching over the populations with his Demon God powers. He eventually was visited by another child from the future, Kushar Scarlet. For a brief moment, Shiruka found quiet and rest and thought himself finally at peace, close to his family.

### Return to the Venatio

However, a few months later, Angra Mainyu, a powerful, ancient and corrupted Demon God, took over the Cheshire Isle by capturing all its inhabitants and forcing them to face their nightmares. Shiruka was made to face possessed versions of Elfissia and Layla, the two women he once loved. Celena, however, helped him conquer this curselike punishment and the pair managed to finally free Elfissia and Layla's souls.

Celena quickly accepted and embraced Elfissia and Layla's presence, going as far as to flirt with them herself, and agreeing to share Shiruka with them. The four fighters, as one, helped the rest of the Cheshire Isle crush Angra Mainyu and returned to the Cheshire Isle, living happily together from then on, but still wary of what could happen. He would later be joined by Runa Uchiha, then afterwards by Naamah.

### To a Desolate Land

When, one day, Celena and Naamah disappeared without a trace, Shiruka attempted to retrieve them, alongside Elfissia, Runa and Layla. They quickly gathered that Celena and Naamah were detained on a ruinous planet, controlled by Mazokh's puppet dictators. Helped by Kuri-ma Tameka and an escaped but spiritually wounded Celena, Shiruka and his allies managed to breach into the planet's core and disrupt Mazokh's influence over Naamah, allowing the latter to banish the former, heal Celena, and restore the planet's state. Shiruka then returned to the Cheshire, alongside his companions and Tameka.

## Appearance

Shiruka is a heavily scarred ritualist with tan skin and mid-long brown hair. He had brown eyes as a human, but they are now a shining yellow as a Demon God. His skin is covered in self-mutilations representing pentagrams and sigils used to reinforce himself. After he bound Sorath to himself, his left arm became twisted and demonic, spiked and clawed, possessing a will of its own and being excessively hard to control. He could also manifest two large, batlike wings from the flesh of his back, and bore two silverish horns. He often wore a purple garb as a ritualist, yet as a demon god, he prefers to wear black pants, exposing his upper body in order for his wings, now permanent, to flow freely.

## Personality

At first naive, curious and a bit proud of his intellect, Shiruka's personality took a turn for the worse upon losing his family. Nearly consumed by his thirst for vengeance, Shiruka became ruthless and self-sacrificing to the point of being a death-seeker, throwing himself into battle without regard for his life or even his soul. However, as time went by, Shiruka's vengeance was replaced by an altruistic vision of the world. Viewing himself as already damned and unable to be saved, Shiruka sought to take the world's burden upon himself, saving as many people as he could while disregarding his own safety.

Shiruka has always needed love and companionship, and sought it instinctively, as it was the case with Layla, Elfissia and Celena, but his twisted past and cursed existence caused him to distance from others, for fear that they would pay the price for being with him, a hypothesis that was confirmed every time. Despite showing the opposite, Shiruka was deeply scarred by guilt and loss.

Paranoid, rough and probably best described as "grumpy", Shiruka's usual trash-talking and arrogant personality is but a mask to prevent others from getting attached to him, as Shiruka believes that he is damned and that people will one day lose him and suffer. However, with Celena's love and care, this pain slowly started to subside, and when Layla and Elfissia joined him, Shiruka could finally relax and show a softer side.

## Powers

* **Supernatural Physical Abilities:** As a human, he was enhanced by artificial ameliorations born of magic and rituals, and injections of demon blood. He was later enhanced by Sorath's existence within him, then as a Demon God, where his physical prowess reached that of a Divine Servant.
* **Keen Intellect:** Shiruka's mind is exceptional, to the point of drawing comparisons with Kuri-ma Mazda, founder of the Kuri Bloodline. He possesses an eidetic memory, a talent for analysis, and his ability to improvise in tight situations have until now shown no limit.
* **Master Ritualist:** Due to Shiruka's intellect, he knows over a thousand rituals, languages, Runes and incantations, which, despite him being born without a talent for magic, makes him a formidable foe.
* **Exorcist Expertise:** Shiruka also has immense knowledge in the domain of the supernatural, especially when it comes to antagonistic creatures.
* **Zoroaster:** Zoroaster, Shiruka's signature weapon, was a holy scimitar able to slice through all seals and protections and who held great anti-magic abilities.
* **Demon God Powers:** Shiruka could briefly call upon Sorath's abilities by slicing away at the sealing lines on his demonic arm, granting temporary great power at the cost of his sanity. He could also slice his arm away to truly become a Demon God for a brief moment before dying. He now possesses these abilities permanently. They include authority over hell, mastery over Fire and Earth and a godlike aura of dominance.

## Storylines

* Also Sprach recounts most of Shiruka's past.
* Memoria Valkyrie shows an alternate timeline where Sigma helped Shiruka by comforting him through his hardest trials.
* Venatio : Game of Life shows Shiruka's first adventure in the Venatio.
* Memories Mending shows Shiruka striving to find happiness.
* Venatio : True Evil shows Shiruka's second adventure in the Venatio.
* Pokemon Hopes showed Shiruka as a **Gym Leader** of Krios, associated with Ground-Type and Fighting-Type pokemon, his signature pokemon being a **Tyranitar**.

## Trivia

* Shiru is a phonetic japanese retranscription of the world "seal". Ka refers to both part of the egyptian perception of the soul and an alternate writing of the japanese word for "evil".
* His mannerisms, expertise for traps, "super-normal abilities", and backstory have drawn comparisons to DC Comics's **Batman**, but this is merely a coincidence.
* He is often associated with the Hanged Man Arcana.
* Shiruka's symbolism is heavily inspired from Nietzsche's famous quote : "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster... when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you" ; Shiruka is heavily Nietzschean, drawing comparisons with his Ubermensch, and his blade Zoroaster is named after Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Zoroaster).
* He possesses another son, Prince Caderyn, with Elfissia.