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"Biographies are lifelong pursuits." |
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"Now now, how would you like to end?" |
Taketsumi is the main antagonist of The Empyrean Inn and The Empyrean Inn: Last Resort, and an antagonist in Whispers of Purgation: Last Words.
Taketsumi is a leader of the Swordcraft class and, in chapters 16 and 20 of Story Mode exclusively, a leader of the Bloodcraft class. His leader skin could be obtained by purchasing season 9 of the premium Battle Pass.
Personality[]
Taketsumi's most iconic trait is his desire to make Ametsuchi a paradise where everyone can be happy. He helps make life as great as possible for the guests, even turning the Sootspawn attacks into hunting spectacles. He develops a brotherly bond with the young Itsurugi, teaching, training, and guiding him to follow his heart. He even protects him when he is blamed for awakening the Great Spider and refuses to kill him.
However, his real self is revealed to be much more radical in The Empyrean Inn: Last Resort. He proves to be manipulative, erasing Itsurugi's memories to make him an ally, and conspiring to overthrow Kunitsu Amachi in order to rule Ametsuchi. He blames all people's unhappiness on their bad memories and seeks to remove them completely so people can spend eternity in Ametsuchi's Paradise partying in happiness. This fanaticism extends to the point he is willing to completely rewrite everyone's memories and brainwash them into thinking they were always living in Ametsuchi to keep them in a state of ignorant bliss. To keep this plan going, he willingly sacrifices people to maintain his power and makes them believe it is an honor. Arrogant and vain, he believes he deserves power, glory, and to be worshipped as a benevolent god for bringing others happiness. He is completely convinced that his actions are just, refusing to accept any other views, and will stubbornly delude himself and even change his own memories to prevent himself from feeling any doubt.
When Itusurugi returns and confronts Taketsumi, the latter still holds a bond with the former. During the fight, Itsurugi points out that Taketsumi's paradise is built upon fake memories and that it is something is only he actually wants and is forcing his idea of happiness onto others. After being defeated, Taketsumi acknowledges his younger brother and realizes that throughout all his plans to make Ametsuchi a paradise, he has forgotten his own happiness.
Story[]
History[]
Little is known about Taketsumi prior to his arrival in Ametsuchi. During his stay at the inn, he grew disgusted with guests being sent back to their previous lives, believing Kunitsu Amachi gave false hope by allowing them to regain their memories and leave Ametsuchi. At some point, he and Saito fall under the manipulation of Nerva of Purgation, where they begin plotting to take over Ametsuchi and turn it into a "real paradise".
The Empyrean Inn[]
As Itsurugi awakens without his memories he is recieved by Taketsumi, who offers to show him around the inn. Taketsumi explains the inn is a luxury resort full of activities and food, all for free.
Itsurugi drags Taketsumi around the inn, but Taketsumi passes him off to Kunitsu Amechi, the innkeeper of Ametuschi, to look after Itsurugi when he has to attend other business. After Kunitsu finishes explaining the inn to Itsurugi, Taketsumi returns and offers to take the latter to the Performance Plaza because a welcoming party is being held for him. The party is interrupted when Kunitsu asks Taketsumi to deal with a Sootspawn that has appeared in the inn. Taketsumi declares a hunting party is started and invites the crowd to join him.
After Taketsumi defeats the Sootspawn, he destroys a crystal that came from it. Itsurugi is amazed by Taketsumi's strength and asks him to take him as an apprentice so he can make everyone in the inn happy. Taketsumi is won over by Itsurugi's eagerness and accepts his offer.
Itsurugi spends his days in the inn with Taketsumi helping to make everyone happy and helping to defend against Sootspawn. One day, Itsurugi vaguely explains his conflicted feelings about further helping the girl he met and Taketsumi encourages him to follow his feelings. This, however, led Itsurugi to mix with the Forsaken and get in trouble with Saito.
Taketsumi takes Itsurugi to the Spider's Cataract, a sealed rift that is the exit of Ametsuchi. However, Taketsumi reveals the more people who pass through it, the wider the rift gets, and it is close to turning into a vortex that would destroy Ametsuchi. The Sootspawn were created to keep people away from the rift and were made with memory shards, any that go rogue are destroyed and reset with a new memory shard to guard the rift. Itsurugi's actions threatened to open the rift and erase Ametsuchi, that is why his actions were deemed a great crime. Taketsumi suddenly prepares to attack Itsurugi in order to protect Ametsuchi. Itsurugi asks Taketsumi if he truly wants to kill him before the two fight. Taketsumi decides to try and negotiate with the Great Spider to stop its rampage instead of killing Itsurugi, answering Itsurugi's previous question that he didn't want to kill him. Taketsumi and Itsurugi reconcile, but it is interrupted when Itsurugi senses a memory shard belonging to him, a memory he didn't know he lost, and runs after it against Taketsumi's pleas.
After Itsurugi sees his memory, he runs back to the Spider's Catarct declaring everything has been one big lie. When Taketsumi catches up to him, Itsurugi tells he knows Taketsumi knew about the lies he told that were hidden in the recovered memories. Taketsumi defends himself claiming they were memories best left forgotten and the two fight once again. Despite improving greatly, Itsurugi is defeated by Taketsumi and seemingly killed by accident. A grieving Taketsumi blames memories for what happened to Itsurugi, calling them a poison, and goes after the Great Spider.
The Empyrean Inn: Last Resort[]
The Great Spider continues rampaging across the inn and Taketsumi confronts it in anger at Itsurugi's apparent death and to protect the inn and its guests. Taketsumi starts his greatest hunting party and soon kills the Great Spider. However, Kunitsu arrives and condemns Taketsumi, revealing the spider extracted energy from the stolen memories to power the inn's luxuries, with the Sootspawn being created from unusable memories. Taketsumi reveals he suspected the Great Spider's role and has a plan before killing Kunitsu and taking the memory shards he carried. He then travels to Weaver's Hall where he finds a suffering Saito, who was in on his plan, and declares he will get rid of every bad memory so Ametsuchi will be a true paradise forever. Taketsumi gloats at how he destroyed hundreds of memory shards to weaken Ametsuchi's power and erased the memories of any who learned about their plan in order to lure out the Great Spider to kill it and Kunitsu in order to take over as Ametsuchi's leader. However, Saito reveals Si Long, Mizuchi, and Anisage still have their memories and pose a threat.
Saito reveal to Taketsumi that Maisha is a servant of Nerva and is fighting Mizuchi and Anisage and that their battle will buy them time to for Taketsumi to complete a transformation he is going under. Taketsumi declares that once his plan is finished, he will make Amestuchi an eternal paradise.
A transformed Taketsumi arrives and reveals his plan to erase all painful memories in Ametsuchi as well as admitting he returned all memories to buy time for his transformation. He explains that he disliked that Ametsuchi's previous management under Kunitsu, which allowed some memories to escape, so he usurped him and became the new deity to remove all bad memories and replace them with happy ones from the inn. He strips the three of their memories, leaving them to believe they are back to being guests at the inn. He does the same for the entire inn and everyone returns to living in ignorance, except this time Taketsumi sacrifices people to take all their memories for power, something the guests are happy to accept. Taketsumi rejoices in finally achieving paradise where no one knows any hardships and plans to expand the inn to bring in even more people. However a voice tells Taketsumi he remembers who he really is and that he wants revenge. Taketsumi doesn't recognize the voice because he wiped his own memories and the voice reveals itself as a grown Itsurugi, who declares he has finally found him.
Though Taketsumi is happy to see Itsurugi, the latter feels the exact opposite and reveals he remembers what Taketsumi did to him. Angered that memories are still disrupting Ametsuchi, Taketsumi attacks. During the fight, he shows Itsurugi the memory wiped guests happiness and offers to let Itsurugi lose his memories so he can join them, but Itsurugi rejects the offer. Itsurugi is angered and demands to know why Taketsumi tried to fight him in the first place and the latter answers that he couldn't let Itsurugi reveal his plan and tries to alter Itsurugi's memories, but Itsurugi resists his power.
Taketsumi explains Nerva gave him the power of Serenity which can create and rewrite memories and begs Itsurugi not to hurt the guests by returning their memories and go back to being his brother. Itsurugi reveals he wanted to be like Taketsumi, and when they previously fought, they fought as equals, and that memory is why he returned, and he refuses to forget it.
Itsurugi fights against Taketsumi using the very fighting techniques the latter taught him. Itsurugi explains that Taketsumi's removal of his own memories have stripped him of his experience in battle and how to fight, taking everything that made him strong, while Itsurugi has mastered everything Taketsumi taught him. Itsurugi defeats Taketsumi with his Spider's Dirge technique, Taketsumi's own technique, and destroys the power of the Great Spider he obtained.
Taketsumi, mortally wounded, asks Itsurugi why he failed and why he couldn't save everyone. Itsurugi answers that other people can only live their lives and decide what gives them happiness, pointing out how many had refused Taketsumi idea of paradise, and that it was never Taketsumi's place to steal memories or his responsibility to make everyone happy. He tells Taketsumi he only needed to find his own happiness. As he dies, Taketsumi realizes he can't remember his own happiness and admits he is impressed by Itsurugi, who promises never to forget him.
Whispers of Purgation: Last Words[]
Taketsumi is revived by Nerva along with Nexus, Belphometh and Maisha to become servants of the Keeper of Purgation. Taketsumi is given the power of Bliss and sent to destroy Naterra.
Upon arriving, he is immediately intercepted by the natives, but Taketsumi uses his new power to alter their memories and have them guide him to the resting place of Viridia Magna, whom Taketsumi intended to absorb her magic to turn Naterra into his new paradise. However, Valdain and Bayleon intercept him along with Meowskers and Djeana. Although they manage to weaken him, Taketsumi gains the upper hand by summoning Sootspawns and manipulating Naterra's aether to create threads that drain everyone's strength. Sensing the arrival of Urias and Erika from another world, Taketsumi brainwashes the other Naterra warriors into believing that the two of them were the invaders and not him.
Taketsumi manages to absorb most of Viridia Magna's power by the time Urias reaches him after his fight against Mono. Although Erika later joins him and the two seem to overcome it, Taketsumi incapacitates them with the same aether threads. However, Mono manages to recover from his apparent shut down and after shocking his brain, reviving the memories that Taketsumi had erased, he loses control and is finally defeated.
In his last moments, Taketsumi remembers Itsurugi, admitting that despite hating him, his memory was burned into his interior.
Card Appearances[]
Gallery[]
