Cyrus Suryc

**Cyrus Suryc**GallerySprites

* Illustration
* Sprite

**False Talents:**

* Ultimate Charisma
* Ultimate Thief

**Cyrus Suryc**, is a character featured in the English fangame *Danganronpa: Lapse* created by Mythridate.

He is known as the **Ultimate Charisma**

## Galleries

📷 For more images of Cyrus, see: Danganronpa: Lapse/Image Gallery and Cyrus Suryc/Sprite Gallery.
## Appearance

Cyrus is a 180 cm (5'11) tall young man with a slim build. He has pale green eyes and ear-length, messy, pastel-green hair with swooping bangs. He wears a torn black t-shirt with a white and pink geometric design and pink collar and cuffs, layered over a grey long-sleeved shirt with black and red patterns on the cuffs. He wears dark gray trousers with a pink pattern on them, tucked into black riding boots. Like everyone else in the killing game, he wears a rose-colored bracelet on his left wrist.

## Personality

In Chapter 1, Cyrus presents himself as a kind and laid-back guy. He says that he was appointed the "Ultimate Charisma" due to his having a kind soul rather than good luck or wealth of any kind. However, after Art Campopiano's execution at the end of Chapter 1, there's a noticeable change in the way Cyrus acts. After Zero reveals that Cyrus had actually been lying to the group about his ultimate talent, Cyrus reveals to the rest of the group that he is actually the "Ultimate Thief". Cyrus then begins to act much more secretive, cold, and harsh towards the rest of the killing game participants. In his altercation with Ashley Westbridge during Chapter 2, Cyrus finally reveals his true talent as the "Ultimate Confidential Informant". During this, we also learn that Cyrus is incredibly protective of his friends and would do anything to keep them out of harm's way. He knew how malicious and dark the preservation project was but insisted on keeping it a secret in order to keep him and his friend, Elara the Ultimate Paramedic, out of any further danger. Cyrus did all he could in order to think of a way to keep his close friend Elara out of harm's way, which ended up with him switching the files so that Echo Pine would then be put in the killing game in order to keep Elara safe. Cyrus does show that he wants to protect any people who may be in danger, as before the project began, Cyrus assassinated six students who were supposed to be participants in the project, believing he was saving them from having to go through the traumatic experience of watching their friends be murdered and possibly being killed themselves, therefore suggesting that Cyrus acts "cold and harsh" to protect himself and his friends to the best extent that he can.

## History

### Early Life

Cyrus grew up in North America as a second-generation Irish-American. He attended White Marsh High School.

At some point in his teenage years, he started getting involved in back alley deals and negotiations, using information to get out of sticky situations, which made him a target and got him into a lot of trouble with underground groups; he frequently needed to trade information for his own life. His skill got him under the radar of the government, which recruited him and gave him the title of Ultimate Confidential Informant. He acted as their data scout for the Preservation Project, gathering classified information about potential participants such as their financial and medical records and any other potentially exploitable information.

### Informant

The Preservation Project was a government scheme in which especially gifted students who were granted Ultimate titles could go to a specially engineered safehouse where they would be protected from a series of Earth-shattering earthquakes that had been tearing through the planet. Unbeknownst to the volunteers, instead of volunteering to be protected, they were instead sealed inside a luxurious mansion and forced into a 7-day-long killing game in which students were tasked with murdering one of their fellow students without getting caught. Any student who got away with murder would win an unspecified "Ultimate Prize". As the Project's confidential informant, Cyrus knew the dark secret of the project and worked alongside other Ultimate students in a specialized capture group, tasked with collecting (kidnapping) students in order to transport them to the mansion, though Cyrus was the only one in the group who knew the truth of the Project.

Cyrus was very close friends with Elara, the Ultimate Paramedic, who was also in Cyrus' capture group. Elara did not know the secret of the project and, like the other students, believed it would keep them safe from the earthquakes. Cyrus was torn, unable to reveal the true purpose of the project or risk putting her and himself in mortal peril. He feigned interest in joining the project alongside her, hoping that if he went with her he could try to protect her, and both were selected to participate. Cyrus could not face Elara being put into the Killing Game and sought a way to save her. In an incredible co-incidence, Echo Pine, who attended the same high school as Elara, was close friends with Ashley Westbridge, whom Cyrus and the capture group were tasked with collecting for the Preservation Project. When Cyrus discovered this, he saw an opportunity to remove Elara from the project and replace her with Echo without arousing suspicion because they attended the same school, and so he doctored the files to put Echo in Elara's place in the Project. When capturing Ashley, Echo accidentally crashed their car into a tree, and the group also captured Echo because they were listed as being involved in the project. At some point before the killing game began, Cyrus assassinated six of the students who were also intended to participate in the Preservation Project, believing he was sparing them from having to participate in the game.

### Cover Identity

At some point after the other students were captured, Cyrus was also captured and taken to the project. As the Ultimate Confidential Informant and believing himself the only person within the group with knowledge about the Project's secret, Cyrus thought that he would be protected within the killing game. He took on the cover identity of "Ultimate Charisma", and ingratiated himself into the group, turning on the charm to make friends easily. As the rest of the group learned that the Preservation Project was a set-up and the true horror of their situation set in, Cyrus played along and feigned surprise. When presented with the first Force Motive Question, "Are your talents a true representation of who you are? Who are you beyond your talent?", Cyrus gives Echo a false description of what his talent involves, but with what seems to be his actual inner truth at the core and what made him such an effective informant: "I think charisma actually lies simply in having a kind soul. People are swayed by those with a kind soul, be it because they have good intentions to follow through on or bad intentions to take advantage of."

Pandora Espère was the first student to be killed in the game, murdered by Art Campopiano, and Cyrus was involved in the trial, hosted by the hologram Zero. The trial ultimately ended with Art's execution. After the execution, Zero decided to provoke Eve, the other school announcer, by revealing to Eve and the students that Cyrus was an informant and not to be trusted. Up until this point, Cyrus had believed himself to be immune from the killing game, but this sudden turn shocked him, and his previously easy-going demeanor quickly changed to mania. Cyrus revealed to the other students that he was responsible for their kidnapping and that he was involved in the killing game.

### Forced Motive Question

On the third floor, Echo, Missy, and Ashley found four new activity amenities that were currently locked and two personal rooms for students not in their group. One of the door symbols matched the symbol that was on the front of Silva Prower's racecar helmet, and Missy recognized the symbol on the other door as belonging to Darling's school. Before they could open the doors, Cyrus interrupted them, revealing that he knew Silva and Darling's names. He took on a second false identity, declaring that he was the Ultimate Thief, someone monumentally successful at stealing priceless goods and working in the shadows. He was uniquely able to take the next step in thievery to include snatching people from their homes; he was the person responsible for knocking the students out and bringing them to the mansion. Before Cyrus could reveal anything more, the group was interrupted by the 10 p.m. nighttime announcement and had to go back to their respective living quarters.

On Day 4, Missy woke all the students and encouraged them to join her in the foyer so she could make a personal announcement. Missy, Echo, Ashley, Kanon, and Forte were all in attendance, but Lyle, Cyrus, and Sei were not. Missy revealed to the group that when she arrived at the mansion, she had found a revolver in her room with a note attached, imploring her to play a game of "Reverse Russian Roulette"—load five bullets into the gun, spin the chamber, and fire it at her head. She insisted she had not attempted the game but wanted to reveal the existence of the gun to the others to prove that she wanted nothing to do with it and that she had no intention to harm anyone. The gun was left in the foyer.

The group was presented with the second Forced Motive question, "Do you believe your talent can benefit the world?", and then returned to the foyer once more. Although Cyrus already had prior knowledge of the Forced Motive Questions before the game began, this question seemed to target him specifically, and it caused him to further contemplate his identity and place in the world after manipulating the class roster and being exposed by Zero. He hatched a plan where he would retrieve Missy's gun and try to goad the other students to kill him, trying to capitalize on their fear. Demanding answers for Cyrus' connection to Darling's death, Missy interrogated Cyrus, and he allowed Missy to enter Darling's room to definitively prove that Darling had attacked him during the capture, scarring his hands, but that she had never made it to the killing game; the room is untouched with no signs of life. Because Missy is such a strong individual, Cyrus instead decides to target one of the students who is more afraid, choosing to single out Ashley to attack him. Missy, Echo, and Ashley met and decided to tie Cyrus up for the foreseeable future to keep him from hurting anyone.

### Smokehouse

While Ashley and Echo were retrieving rope from the climbing wall room, Cyrus put his plan into action, taking Missy's gun from the foyer to the Smokehouse and firing shots. Ashley and Echo rushed towards the noise, which came from the Smokehouse, though before they could enter, Ashley pushed Echo into the Art Gallery to keep them safe and entered alone. After hearing shouting and another shot, Echo scrambled to get out of the art gallery but found themselves locked in; Ashley had sealed the door with rope from outside. Inside the smokehouse, Ashley confronted Cyrus, who threatened to kill her with the gun he had retrieved from the foyer. The pair fought, and Cyrus revealed to Ashley that Silva was dead. Cyrus attempted to incapacitate Ashley with an alcohol-soaked rag, utilizing prior knowledge of Ashley's alcohol allergy to induce anaphylactic shock. Ashley decided that it would be worth it to die herself if she could eliminate a threat to the others and Echo, and she continued to fight Cyrus, causing him to hit the nearby kiosk and activate the voice-to-text function with his bracelet just as she swore that "I won't let you kill Echo". This transmitted a message throughout the safehouse that read: "Cyrus says, Kill Echo, from the Smokehouse Lounge".

Cyrus began to reach for the gun, which had fallen to the floor, but Ashley reached it first. In her anaphylactic daze, she accidentally fired it, hitting Cyrus fatally in the chest. With his dying breaths, Cyrus revealed his true identity as the Ultimate Confidential Informant and explained his plan to replace his friend Elara with Echo in the game. As Cyrus lay dying, Ashley tried to apply pressure to stop the bleeding wound, but he ultimately died from blood loss, and Ashley succumbed to the effects of the anaphylaxis and fell unconscious. Meanwhile, in the Art Gallery, Echo was freed from the Art Room by Sei. They entered the Smokehouse together, where they found Cyrus' corpse and Ashley unconscious in the adjoining Casino. After investigating the crime scene, Forte carried Ashley to the infirmary, which is only accessible via the courtroom.

The rest of the group began the necessary Class Trial without Ashley, who was treated by Eve's robotic medical equipment in the infirmary. Despite Echo's insistence that Ashley was not capable of murder, the other students ultimately made them realize the truth, and Ashley was correctly identified as Cyrus' murderer. Recovered enough to return to the courtroom, Ashley confessed, revealing to the group Cyrus' dying confession, too. Ashley was summarily executed, pummeled to death by horseshoes until one snapped her neck.

## Talent

The first false talent that Cyrus used to represent himself while participating in the killing game was his Ultimate Charisma. Cyrus described being the Ultimate Charisma as having "the mystifying ability to draw people to you with little to no effort", and that "Some might equate the word 'charisma' with 'charm' and, in turn, think that charisma has to do with good looks, a beautiful voice, overflowing wealth, etc. However, I think charisma actually lies simply in having a kind soul. People are swayed by those with a kind soul, be it because they have good intentions to follow through on or bad intentions to take advantage of." Though this was not his real talent, when Echo first met Cyrus, they commented that despite not understanding the implications of Cyrus' talent, they could "certainly feel it from how approachable he is". It's likely that Cyrus' strong natural charisma and charm are part of what makes him successful as the Ultimate Confidential Informant; his charisma helped him manipulate others into trusting him so that he would not raise any suspicion when carefully probing for information. Indeed, when he later took on the second false title of Ultimate Thief, Missy was immediately very suspicious that the second title was a lie because his change in demeanor seemed much more forced than the previous title had, implying that his earlier demeanor while taking on the role of the Ultimate Charisma was much closer to his natural personality.

After the first Class Trial, Zero revealed that Cyrus' title of the Ultimate Charisma was false. Until this point, Cyrus had believed he had immunity from danger in the killing game because of his position as the Ultimate Confidential Informant, and he became quite panicked and manic, his demeanor extremely different from before. Metaphorically backed into a corner and still unable to tell the truth about his true talent, he instead told the group that he was the Ultimate Thief. Having seen Pandora and Art be murdered and executed and being forced to confront what he had brought the other students into, particularly Echo, who was not even supposed to be involved, Cyrus was wracked with fear and guilt. He chose to present his second false talent in a manner of half-truth, claiming that "I've succeeded so well in the theft of priceless goods, working solely in the shadows, that I was able to take that next step into snatching people from their homes—only an Ultimate Thief could have breached another Ultimate student's defenses and brought you here!" By only touching on his involvement in the killing game but revealing that he was responsible for the abductions, he sowed enough fear amongst the other students that they were immediately suspicious of him without knowing what he had done as the Ultimate Confidential Informant. He gave away just enough to try to deliberately incite another student into killing him. Despite trying hard to make himself a target by acting crazy, most of the students realized that his demeanor was not genuine and did not fully buy that he was truly the Ultimate Thief.

Cyrus worked alongside the Preservation Project as the Ultimate Confidential Informant, acting as a data scout in the field, gathering information about Ultimate students. According to Zero, Cyrus "always found himself in back-alley deals and negotiations, using information to get in and out of sticky situations. As an informant, he was always a target of interest and strife. Underground groups and the like seemed to always want a grip on him". As the Project's data scout, Cyrus was tasked with finding out as much information about Ultimate students as he could, such as financial records, personal records, and health records—any information that could be exploited against them in the killing game setting. In his own words, Cyrus described his talent as "a disgusting walking hub of dark information that feeds all sorts of underground dealings and strife." In his opinion, his talent should have been the Ultimate Negotiator, because he traded information in order to save his own life despite the fact that "I despised the underhanded ways of humanity... the things people did to get the upper hand on others."

Cyrus was also involved in the "capture group," which abducted the students to participate in the Preservation Project, but he was one of the few in the group who knew the true nature of what the Preservation Project entailed. During some of these abductions, Cyrus ended up killing six students who were intended to be part of the project. As an insider, Cyrus had the unique position to manipulate documentation, which switched out his friend Elara, who was intended to join the Preservation Project, with Echo, a talentless person who attended the same school as Elara. In his mind, he wished to believe that he was sparing these students from having to face the horror of the killing game.

## Creation and Development

Cyrus was inspired by a female character in an old Danganronpa RP group that Mythridate participated in—the same RP in which Ashley Westbridge originated. The character Cyrus was inspired by also had a palindrome name, and Mythridate deliberately gave Cyrus a green palette to contrast the original character's color, which was red. Ashley and Cyrus were the only two characters in *Lapse* that came from the background of a previously established character. Mythridate feels that because Ashley and Cyrus' inspirations came from the same source, the two "were always destined to be interconnected somehow".

Mythridate wanted to make a character who was seemingly nice but mysteriously intent. His design was meant to arouse suspicion in the player, as he has no visibly identifiable talent shown in any way. The only thing that might give him away for being dangerous is his torn shirt, but those tears were a fashion statement and part of his facade of being charismatic. According to Mythridate, his odd clothing illustrates the different preconceptions in the layers of facade he puts up: Charisma, interesting sense of fashion; Thief, questionable slashes; Confidential Informant, haphazard situations he finds himself in.

Mythridate revealed that in an unused dialogue of his dying breaths, Cyrus was going to tell Ashley he was too afraid to commit suicide, implying he was weak despite his desire to stop his talent from entering the dark motivations of humanity, and instead turned to goad others, trying to capitalize on their fear. He, like Ashley, knew in the back of his mind that doing so would leave his friends all alone. He's an internally conflicted character who couldn't find it in himself to act on his own desires.

## Trivia

* Cyrus' surname, Suryc, is his given name spelled backwards, making his name a palindrome.
* Creator Mythridate has stated that her imagined voice for Cyrus is the similar to Claude from Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
* Creator Mythridate has assigned a Pokémon type to each of the Lapse characters, and Cyrus's type is the dark type. Mythridate has said that "Cyrus' mixed intentions allude to Absol's misunderstood intentions as the 'disaster Pokemon'".
	+ Cyrus' school, White Marsh High School, is based on the Pokemon Absol, which is based on the fantastic beast Bai Ze from Chinese mythology; Bai Ze literally means "white marsh".
* Each member of the Danganronpa: Lapse cast has an associated flower, Cyrus's being the snapdragon, which is said to represent graciousness, strength; deception, the latter likely in reference to Cyrus's false talents.
* Cyrus is a homoromantic asexual.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 **Mythridate's Website**: Chapter 2 additional reading (December 31, 2019)
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 **Mythridate's Website**: Extra Character Info (October 18, 2019)
3. ↑ **Mythridate's Website**: Post-Chapter 1, Pre-Chapter 2 Q&A (December 22, 2019)