ad astra per aspera

Let me know how I'm doing with this dweeb! Anon is on and IP Logging is off.

Please leave date, time, and method of contact when replying. Thank you.

Subject Line: Application | Koumei Ren | Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic

♚ OOC
Name: Stark
Age: 28
Contact: plurk @ starkxravingxmad
Character In-game: N/A

♛ IC
Name: Koumei Ren
Canon: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Canon Point: Chapter 303
Age: 30
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Appearance: Link here.

History/Background: Link to the Wiki

Since the wiki isn't completely caught up with current information, I will elaborate here:

During the three year time skip after Kouen, Koumei, Kouha and Kougyoku lost the Civil War against their adopted brother Hakuryuu, the three princes were branded as traitors. However, although Hakuryuu was still influenced by the darkness in his soul after he cursed his fate and place in the world, he still found it in his heart to show mercy to his brothers. The execution of Kouen, the named ringleader of the 'rebellion' and the man who should have been king, was entirely staged through the efforts of Aladdin, and the alleged 'exile and imprisonment' that Koumei and Kouha were sentenced to was a life on the isolated Samon Island with several people on hand to aid them, and regular supplies being sent via ship from the Kou Empire. This decsion may or may not have been influenced by the love Kouen showed to Hakuryuu even after all of his plans had been smashed into dust-- a love that was expressed by using the healing powers provided by the Djinn, Phenex, to restore Hakuryuu's lost legs and arm at the expense of his own-- but, that is an analysis for another place.

While it's unknown how Koumei survived the javelin that gutted him at the climax of chapter 277, we do know that he was somehow allowed to be healed by the magicians already present on the battlefield, despite the obvious loss they had suffered. And, during the three year timeskip, Koumei-- who had always devoted his entire mind and spirit to the war effort at the expense of his physical capabilities-- suddenly found that he needed to now be the almost literal arms and legs of his Brother and King. When we catch up with the brothers in chapter 294, we see Koumei working on unloading the boats with the scar on his chest plain for all to see. Alibaba, who was declared dead three years before and had somehow managed to avoid this fate through the plotting of Aladdin, the Magi Yunan, and the possible interference of the deceased Magi from the ancient world of Alma Torran, had become Prime Minister of Kou in the short time after his revival and had come to the island seeking ideas on how to restore the fallen empire's ailing economy.

Hakuryuu, who had made this complicated arrangement for his brothers, was no longer the Emperor of Kou. Instead, the youngest and least prepared of the Ren family royals, Kougyoku, was the one wearing the crown. The brothers and Kougyoku were all aware of what had taken place, but the masterful planning of Sinbad had made it all but impossible for them to communicate. Although Koumei, Kouen and Kouha were more than aware of the poor economic straits that their once thriving nation was in, there was literally nothing that they could do.

That is, until Alibaba managed to twist Sinbad's words around enough to allow Koumei to return to Rakushou, the Capital, with him. With his hair shorn, his Metal Vessel taken from him, and forced to hide his identity behind a title and his face behind a mask, Koumei did return to Kou in order to help his baby sister fix the mess that was wrought equally by both Sinbad's new world order and her brothers' mistakes. Before departure, Kouen confessed that, had they ultimately won the war and conquered the world, he would have stepped down as king and passed the crown to Koumei, declaring that he himself was a man more suited for war. Koumei would have made the better peace-time king.

This information, one of the few scraps that Koumei didn't know about Kouen's plans, was a surprise....even if the information was useless in the current world.

After all, he and Alibaba had an empire to revitalize.

Everyone but Kougyoku's direct retainer Ka Kobun saw through Koumei's ruse immediately, but they played along with the charade for the sake of the Empire's future. With the help of Alibaba and the people who had remained in Kougyoku's service in Rakushou, he was able to help form a strategy that would set Kou onto a proper path. However, in doing this, he also revealed the darker secrets that the Kou Empire's military had been keeping:

Namely, the Magic Research Facility, and the project to revive the dead to use as soldiers in future campaigns.

Although not a magician himself, Koumei had been the man behind this project since his youth. Koumei had been a brilliant person even as a child, and Alibaba notes that the world may have ended up in a different place had Koumei been born a few years earlier. And, while he shows disgust at the thought of using the dead as soldiers, the resident researchers in the facility make it quite clear that they didn't share the sentiment. In fact, Koumei himself expresses confusion at Alibaba's feelings, for the soldiers were proud of being allowed to volunteer for such a project. They couldn't think of a more noble cause for the bodies of their departed souls to be used for.

While Alibaba goes out making economic agreements and deals with the surrounding countries, Koumei works on refining the tools based on the 'Eight Trigrams Magic' as he termed it-- and, it is thanks to his understanding of Space-Time Magic because of the powers he was able to access through the Djinn, Dantalion, that they were able to come up with a means of easily transporting goods without having them spoil during shipping. Strategically placed targets for the use of the teleportation magic would have been installed around the world, had Sinbad not gone out of his way to spread false rumors about Kou's military revival.

At the end of chapter 303, they had been summarily been defeated in a battle of wits with Sinbad....but, Alibaba makes it plenty clear that he has another plan up his sleeve.


Personality: Unassuming in both appearance and demeanor, Koumei is far from what people would expect of the Second Prince, Head Military Strategist, and General Commander of the Kou Empire's Western Army. As one of the key political figures in an Empire which plans to unite the world under a single culture and king, Koumei is the one who single-handedly instituted the laws that assimilate the countries and kingdoms the Kou Empire has conquered, and has come up with ruthlessly brilliant military strategies with one goal in mind: minimize casualties on all sides, and ensure that this is the last war that the world will ever have to face-- even if that means sacrificing the pleasantries of life in the short term in order to ensure a peaceful outcome in the long term. Although he is shabby and unkempt from the immensly long hours he pulls for the sake of his country's goals, he is ever polite and even graceful in manner when it is called upon. Everyone, from the lowliest foot soldier to his esteemed elder brother, is treated with the utmost respect. Examples of this manner of address include how he refers to his elder brother, Kouen, as Ani-Ou -- 'My Brother and King'-- and how he refers to the First Princess and daughter of the previous Emperor, Hakuei, as 'Princess Hakuei' or 'Lady Hakuei' -- though the latter may partly be out of longstanding habit from their childhood, as their political positions reversed during that period. Even the exiled prince of one of the countries conquered by Kou, Alibaba Saluja, is referred to as 'Lord Alibaba' although the young prince has technically been stripped of all titles and ranks. When sending an army of over 700,000 soldiers out to a battle that they have an equal chance of winning or losing, he leaves them with one short and humble request: 'Please win.'

His humble nature and his intellect are his true strengths. Although he is the holder of a Metal Vessel that lends him the powers of the Djinn, Dantalion, his powerset isn't one that is meant for combat. Rather, it is best used in the same way he builds his strategies-- to minimize casualties and ensure a swift victory. He is plain-spoken, and puts on no airs when he speaks, although he does have a tendency to be painfully blunt and a known habit of making up outrageous lies for the sake of aggravating his elder brother and attempting to shirk duties for a variety of lazy and selfish reasons. The Metal Vessel that he carries, and the fact that he had to have conquered a Dungeon to gain it, both serve as a reminder that Koumei is one of the many King Vessels in this universe...although, like Kouen, the man who could easily stand as Emperor had affairs played out as they were planned to, he doesn't seem to actually want the title of King. Rather, he is content to follow the lead of his elder brother and take any measure possible in order to minimize casualties in the outcome-- the brutal battlefields he observed with his brother at a young age, when the previous emperor was still alive, seem to be a major influence on this ultimate goal.

Beyond his intellectual capabilities and his odd, unkempt grace, it's important to note Koumei's love of his family which drives him on and off the battlefield, and how he prefers to judge a person by their actions rather than their societal status. The last two traits are seen across the board among all of his brothers and sisters that we have seen on-screen-- though the family is large and spread out across the regions, broken up in places by differing politics and machinations that are happening behind the screens, nearly all of the siblings have shown the utmost level of trust and support with one another. During Hakuryuu's Coup d'Etat of Rakushou and the subsequent Civil that tore his family apart, each one of the Ren siblings deals with it in their own way. Although it hurts Koumei more than he is willing to let on, he is aware enough of how emotions can cloud a general's judgement that he chooses to put his own feelings about it to the side. With the survival of his family and country at stake in the battle that ensues, there is no room to be questioning and second guessing himself. And, although he informs everyone that they'll know that the battle has been won when they're holding Hakuryuu's head, it's clear that he has already considered the pain that such an outcome will cause for his country and his siblings that survive.

But a tactician can't worry about his own feelings. He has a grander scale to consider.

After the three year time-skip and the extended break after a lifetime of waging war, some of Koumei's more dour mannerisms have morphed into something closer to a grave conviction. He no longer makes attempts to shirk his duties, and indeed now sees it as his responsibility to be the near literal arms and legs of the now gaunt and sickly Lord Kouen. Furthermore, though he hasn't forgotten the pain of his defeat against Sinbad's interference in the Civil War with his adopted brother Hakuryuu, he seems to bear the very scar that should cause him shame with a degree of pride, for he makes no effort to cover it while he works on unloading the ships.

A further sign of his conviction is the fact that his hair, once a glorious ponytail of immense length, is now entirely shorn off. Instead, now he sports a hair style similar to that of the late Ren Hakuren-- the cousin who was murdered by the dark Magi, Arba, well over a decade earlier, the man whom he admired, and the man who he politically had to follow in the footsteps of. Although he doesn't have near the humor that Hakuren expressed, Koumei has also let his guard down some. He is more apt to show his dorky side in private conversations, which is mostly expressed in an innocent awkwardness that is oddly endearing.

Furthermore, despite everything that happened, he seems to carry a small torch of hope in his heart. While he's a man who has literally lost everything he has spent his lifetime working toward, he understands that he can't linger on these losses. The fact that he still lives and breaths alongside his brothers is beyond any of his predictions-- and, although the new mercantile economic system is completely counterpoint to the near socialistic economic system he had built for the Kou Empire, he seems to have taken the words Alibaba used to chide him three years earlier to heart:

"Express your feelings to the people alive now, instead of waiting to do it in the future."


Skills/Abilities: Physically, Koumei is a very ordinary human being who isn't very strong when acting on his own. On the basis of him being the second prince of an expanding empire and the fact that he has been present on battle fields at least as a non combatant since he was as young as 10 years old, it's easy to assume that Koumei has had some form of combat training like his brothers and male cousins-- most likely with a bladed weapon, although the fact that he doesn't regularly carry one would infer that he isn't very proficient at it. Furthermore, given the Kou Empire's access to an extensive amount of information when one takes into consideration the technological restrictions of the universe-- and Koumei's sharp intellect-- it's reasonable to infer that he has had a more than standard education for the era...likely with a focus on military history, mathematics, economics, law, and other subjects that would be regarded academically among The Classics. Furthermore, it's also reasonable to infer that he has reading proficiency of the Torran Language, an ancient language that is all but dead in this universe that is taught to those of Royal ancestry and is present in every single Dungeon that has appeared in the world. Although the fervor of his study is nothing when compared to his brother, Kouen, his flexibility of mind could only have been honed by these studies.

That said, he is the man behind the former economy of the Kou Empire, and the complicated systems he set into place, though distasteful even to him in some areas, was nothing short of effective in protecting the masses and allowing civilization to flourish. Of note, no one starved and no one wanted for the basic necessities while he was in charge-- and the economy was only one part of what he was working on. He was also in charge of a vast area of study regarding magic and it's potential military applications, and he approached the work with the clear mind of a scientist despite being incapable of using magic himself. As the study of magic was looked down upon in the Kou Empire in favor of military power, this hidden department that he ran was a military secret of the highest degree. Koumei himself was considered something of an oddity and maverick for even supporting it.

Despite his meager physical skills, Koumei shines as a military tactician and political advisor. His skill with negotiations and ability to understand people is how he has managed to help his brother conquer much of the known world in a short span of time, and his memory for details as they concern the grander picture is nothing short of impressive. Where Kouen is the charismatic military leader that the Empire needs, there is no doubt that he would not have been nearly as successful without Koumei by his side.

What Koumei lacks in physical prowess, however, he makes up for with his skill and efficiency in utulizing his Metal Vessel to the fullest of his capabilities-- although it is noted that he can't do anything combat-wise without it. The Metal Vessel is symbolic of his pact with the Djinn Dantalion, a spirit capable of manipulating what is known as Space-Time Magic. In his full Djinn Equip, Koumei takes on the form and physical characteristics of Dantalion and is capable of opening portals that connect one area of space to another within a short distance in a move known as Dante Al-Thais. With it, he can transport object and people between locations, redirect potential damage upon an area (though this is noted to exhaust him), and combine the full force of multple attacks onto a single point. Though he rarely would do such a thing, Koumei has been known to transport entire mountains upon a monsterous foe in an effort to stop the creature. More minor abilities of all Metal Vessel users in their full Djinn Equip include limited flight, the ability to restore their inherent Magoi through exposure to the same natural element, and the ability to use an Extreme Magic that is wholly unique to them-- although Canon has not revealed the specifics of Koumei's Extreme Magic at this time.

Koumei is noted as being one of only three people in the Magi universe who is capable of using this sort of magic; the other two are the late Magi Scheherezade of the Reim Empire and the Magi Judar, who is currently missing after being declared MIA and returning back to the realm of the living alongside Alibaba.

Not that he has access to any of his magic in Enripse, of course.

Please leave Date, Time, and Method of Contact in the top of the message. Thank you.