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Gaignun Kukai, Jr.

Real Name: Ernest Stroebel
Room: M11
Roommate: Ootori Kyouya
Age: 26 (appears 12)
Hair Color: Bright red
Eye Color: Blue
Height: 4'7"
Other Characteristics: Tattoo of the number "666" on his right palm.
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Backstory:
Junior is one of the survivors of the U.R.T.V. (U-DO Retro Virus) project, created and overseen by Dr. Dimitri Yuriev. All the U.R.T.V. units are essentially clones of Yuriev, even though they do have a "mother" who provided the eggs for the experiment, and were test tube babies created for the sole purpose of being weapons. The first 665 U.R.T.V.s had weak anti-U-DO waveforms and a collective consciousness, incapable of free thought without orders from someone.

U.R.T.V.s 666 (Rubedo or Junior), 667 (Albedo), 668 (Citrine), and 669 (Nigredo or Gaignun), however, were all capable of free thought and had extra abilities given to them, thus why they were dubbed variants. Initially, units 666 and 667 were conjoined twins, separated after the 28th week, and were attached at the back; even after they were separated, Junior could still feel Albedo's heartbeat. Both have abilities based on the same basic principle of immunity, and when they were separated those powers went off in different directions: Junior's became ability to slow his cell growth enough to keep him from dying of old age, though he's still vulnerable to physical wounds.

Junior was also engineered with what was reportedly the perfect anti-U-DO waveform, and is also the vessel for a power known as Red Dragon Mode, a powerful ability to neutralize U-DO and, theoretically (as far as the U.R.T.V.s were informed, at least), destroy it. Because of these things, he was dubbed the leader of the U.R.T.V.s, and was in charge of controlling the spiritual link that connected the U.R.T.V.s when they were using their anti-U-DO abilities, ensuring that nothing went wrong. However, because of being dubbed the leader for his powerful and dangerous abilities, the standard units hated him and called him a monster, and a generally-cowardly Albedo stepped up to defend him, violently.

When he and his variant siblings were twelve, Dr. Juli Mizrahi and her daughter, Sakura Mizrahi came to the Yuriev Institute. The theory was that Sakura was unable to do much of anything in the outside world because of a connection to U-DO that was blocking her subconscious, so Dr. Yuriev used the U.R.T.V.s in the tests on Sakura to see if they could remove it. In the first dive into Sakura's subconscious, Junior, Albedo and Gaignun managed to make contact with her, and she was perfectly fine in her subconscious.

Through several more of the tests, Junior made contact with Sakura and fell in love with her. He made a promise to her to protect her mother and "sister" (MOMO), which he tries as hard as he can to keep. Albedo, however, got jealous and Junior wasn't exactly sure why, so the twins drifted further apart, and the effect of that was amplified when Albedo was told that he couldn't die.

When they were sent to Miltia during the Conflict to neutralize U-DO, Junior had a vision of the planet being destroyed and cut off the link, which in turn caused U-DO to go out of control and infect all of the units but himself and Gaignun, driving them all insane (as was the case with Albedo) or killing them. When chaos and Canaan were sent to help, Junior was desperately trying to keep an injured Gaignun alive.

Junior was unable to age after the event, which is why he still maintains the appearance of a twelve-year-old, and it's debatable whether he subconsciously activated his other special ability in order to keep control of Red Dragon Mode or if it was a response to mental trauma from being responsible for the destruction of most all of his comrades.

He and Gaignun were taken under the protection of the Second Miltian government (formed after the events on old Miltia, and run by the same person) and given false names, Gaignun Kukai and Gaignun Kukai, Jr., and Junior was passed off as Gaignun's adopted son when his brother became taller than he was. Their last name was the "family name" that Second Miltia used to pool its special resources funds, and the U.R.T.V.s quickly became tools to investigate what really happened on Miltia and U-TIC's involvement; the Kukai Foundation was formed in order to receive more money so they could continue their investigations. The Foundation was more than an organization, though; it was a mobile colony situated in Second Miltian space, and it became a popular vacation spot, as well as a home to some, for humans and non-humans alike.

Upon creating the Foundation, they acquired the large starship Durandal and Junior became its captain, using the mass-produced 100-series realians (of which MOMO was the prototype) as the crew. They put the ship to many practical uses, not the least of which include being able to house everyone from the Foundation colony if need be and being able to dock in the Foundation in such a way that it becomes a large skyscraper in the middle and is able to propel the Foundation through space.

Until he met Shion, MOMO, and the others, Junior was investigating U-TIC, the incident surrounding the Woglinde's destruction, and the sudden disappearance of the planet Ariadne; but when he saved them from the giant gnosis Cathedral Ship, he quickly realized that MOMO was the little sister that Sakura had mentioned, because she looked more like the other girl than the mass-produced realians did. He took her into his care, and even gave her a bullet with the words "Sayonara, baby!" on it for a good luck charm, which he turned into a bracelet.

When the party was trapped on the taken-over Durandal and dove into KOS-MOS's subconscious domain, Junior had to face the realities of what happened to the U.R.T.V.s and Albedo on Miltia once again, and proved he wasn't quite ready to do that yet because it terrified him.

During a Gnosis attack on the Kukai Foundation, MOMO went missing when they were evacuating all the colony's citizens onto the Durandal, only to turn up later on the Song of Nephilim, a large machine created by her father that had been a contributor to the events on Miltia. Albedo was the one who had kidnapped her, and Junior went into the Song of Nephilim with the rest of the party to get her back, hoping to finally settle things with Albedo.

Things didn't go as planned, though, when he found Albedo in the center of the Song trying to take some data from MOMO's mind, and the white-haired twin was able to goad Junior into losing control and going into Red Dragon Mode. Things had to be left unfinished, though, as once Albedo let MOMO go so he could amuse himself with Junior, the realian was able to stop their ability-fight and calm Junior down. The Blue Testament showed up then, and told Albedo to leave, and then proceeded to fight the group. Afterward, though, Junior and the others retreated back to the Durandal, where Albedo returned with another machine, Proto Merkabah, with which he threatened to destroy Second Miltia.

After trying (and failing) once more to settle things with his brother and preventing Proto Merkabah from destroying Second Miltia, as well as escaping from Ormus, Junior was able to rest a bit on Second Miltia before attending MOMO's subconscious analysis in order to find what they could of the data Albedo was looking for.

He was there when they began, but couldn't bear to watch after they turned off her personality layer; though he was the first to ask Shion for help getting her back online after Albedo's second hacking attempt, and was one of the ones to dive into her subconscious domain, where he had to witness his time at the Yuriev Institute again from when Sakura came to them.

After some time of flashbacks, though, Albedo dove into MOMO's subconscious, as well, and and the twins unleashed their abilities on each other until MOMO reactivated herself and cried out for them to stop, at which point Albedo stole the data from her. As Albedo disappeared into the abyss to unlock the way to Old Miltia and the original Zohar, though, Junior could feel his brother's heartbeat fading.

When that incident was over with, the group split up again, and was reunited on the Elsa when they were sent to recover the original Zohar before Ormus from Old Miltia. When they reached Miltia, though, the Ormus Patriarch awakened the machine called Proto Omega, which burst out of Miltia and turned into the Omega system, and they had to go through the system in order to defeat him. When they did, though, Albedo showed up again, and was turned into particles by a blast from Omega, but once the Patriarch was defeated, the Testaments appeared and returned Albedo to normal.

Albedo then went on to create a space-time anomaly where the Omega system was while the group returned to the Durandal again. Junior could hear Albedo saying that he had to come finish him, though, and finally decided to head into the anomaly by himself, though MOMO asked him to promise to come back since he wouldn't take her with him. Junior didn't respond to this, but just smiled at her.

Once inside the space-time anomaly, Albedo showed Junior various scenarios (such as his younger self beating Sakura until she was dead) in hopes of convincing his twin to kill him, and when Junior finally reached him, a little more taunting from Albedo caused Red Dragon to awaken as the two began fighting. When they were done, it seemed as though all would be well, but then Albedo began to disappear, leaving Junior very distraught as he realized that Albedo knew all along that he would die if he fought Red Dragon!Junior. Before he disappeared, though, winged Kirschwassers (99-series realians that had become attached to Albedo) came down and took him up in a (suspiciously religious) light coming from the ceiling, leaving Junior alone with his grief in the collapsing space-time anomaly.

But then, while he was mourning his twin's death, Sakura appeared behind Junior and convinced him that there were still people he could protect who were waiting for him, and when Junior finally went to her, she turned into chaos, who got him out of there safely and took him back to the Durandal, where MOMO was waiting anxiously for him.
His memory ends after his encounter with Albedo in the space-time anomaly, when everyone split up and he got a dog to help cope with his brother's death (a chihuahua with white fur and purple eyes like Albedo and was, respectively, named Alby).

Personality:
As old as he really is, Junior's attitude is more fitting with his appearance; in fact, Gaignun even tells him at one point to try acting his age. He's laid back and even cocky at times (especially in battle), and sometimes goes from serious to joking in an attempt to lighten the mood. He cares about the feelings of others and tries to make them feel better if he thinks something's wrong. He also works hard to treat humans and non-humans equally, though he can tend to be on the bossy side sometimes. Junior speaks his mind and is the sort of person that would never abandon anyone, even if he had to go through hell to get them back. Case in point, rescuing MOMO from the Song of Nephilim. All this probably stems from being alienated from Albedo as a child because he didn't understand what was going on.

However, there is a side to Junior that isn't so carefree. He doesn't want to share his pain with anyone, and can snap at people if they try to find out what's wrong, though he feels guilty for this and apologizes shortly after. He also has a bit of a hot temper, though not it usually takes a while to anger him enough to activate Red Dragon. For the most part, though, Junior tries to bury negativity, but it doesn't help that he scares easily.

A source of trouble for him is where he stands as a person. He insists that he's a human, and while his body is human, he was created to be a weapon. He only recently came to terms with that, and at the time it was the adrenaline and Red Dragon speaking instead of him. On the occasion that his obsession with guns is talked about in the first game, it was agreed that it probably stemmed from a complex about his height. It's likely a sensitive topic to him for more than just the memories it brings up, especially since his brothers grew to be six feet or taller and he was supposed to be the leader.

At Landel's:

Red Dragon Mode has been suppressed completely, almost to the point that Junior might forget about it if he didn't have that blaring tattoo. He's been lucky and only really run into one thing that tried to hurt him, and that was when Riza was a sniper in the Sun Room during special counseling. He and Luffy get along really well, and he also met and took a liking to both Sora and Renamon, the latter of whom he calls "Rena". He also travelled with Darman when he and Luffy were planning to raid the kitchen for knives, but that was also the night that they were shot at and they were unable to make it that far. He had a very brief meeting with Otacon, but that was cut short when Snake came in to talk to his partner.

More recently, he met Ashton in the chapel during the Head Doctor's Sunday surprise, and planned on going upstairs with Ashton, Luffy, Renamon, and anyone else he could find that night to try and find his guns, but things didn't turn out that way as he was picked for special counseling. Junior ended up shooting Renamon twice when he encountered her in the entry room, and ended up using Red Dragon Mode when Elena, Reno, and Rufus were trying to keep him down. That next morning, he made his apologies to his victims on the bulletin board and found out through it that MOMO had arrived at Landel's as well.

Alleria	Latest page update: made by Alleria , Apr 10 2007, 9:14 PM EDT (about this update About This Update Edited by Alleria 1772 words added 4 words deleted view changes - complete history)
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