Difference between revisions of "John Crassman"

"Martyrdom to a tyrant is no different than a fool's death in vain."
- John destroys Loyce's Subordinate Demon Lord Armies

John "Reaper" Crassman, as expected of an Inner Shadow to the Black Legion Organization, is among one of the mightiest beings to ever exist in The Great Akuma Continuity. Considered the forefront of the battle power of the Organization, John displays an immensely daunting combat prowess that has eclipsed many of the top enemies encountered throughout the story by several orders of magnitude. The greatest testament to Crassman's power was shown in Beyond the Gods, where John singlehandedly held his own against multiple Vessels of Vala including Jekyll, Loki, Sarina Ultear, Guardian, and Space Marine Achilles of Thetis, even gaining the upper hand until the intervention of June Lucia. One Vessel alone was strong enough to completely overpower Aaron Hope even with the assistance of his subordinate Auxiliary Shadows. During the climax of the story, John was able to briefly hold his own against the likes of Great Demon Lord Loyce Hal, who is currently considered the strongest threat in the entire Great Akuma storyline aside from Vala herself. Crassman would even manage to injure and reduce the Ultimate Primordial Demon's battle power by 33%, allowing Aaron and his forces to stand a better chance against the esoteric entity.

John is rated Elite Tier SS~ Rank, putting him at a level of prowess far surpassing the Vessels of Vala and even the members of The Dark Hexagram. According to Inner Shadow Gasket, John's perceived strength could theoretically do battle against all six SS Ranked Outer Shadows including fabled Aaron "The God Eater" Hope and Great Demon Lord Kon Larum and come out victorious.

The strength John boasts is extremely overwhelming, such to the point where he can set off instinctual predatory defensive mechanisms in most living beings. When battling Loyce's forces, many of the armies of Loyce's subordinate Demon Lords instinctively avoided Reaper, even those who did not hone their sensory abilities to detect danger. Upon drawing out more of his combat power, the sheer presence of Inner Shadow Reaper was enough to completely cripple and defeat an entire horde of Demons.

Inner Shadow Reaper intimidating the Vessels of Vala

Immeasurable Chakra Reserves: John Crassman is considered by many a grandmaster-level chakra practitioner and is the greatest chakra user of all time. The degree to which Crassman can wield his gargantuan chakra reserves has given him a terrifying reputation that is supplemented by the scale of his accomplishments. According to Inner Shadow Gasket, the chakra that Crassman wields has allowed him to ascend to the level of esoterics, allowing the Inner Shadow to step into the realm of causality, influencing the order of the world through the sheer power of his chakra-enhanced strikes.

• Final Circle Style: A unique martial arts technique honed by Crassman back when he was an Outer Shadow to fight on par with Inner Shadow Avara. The style is optimized to integrate John's Aura of Death, and makes use of scythes to deliver devastating arcs of destruction. In its early stages, the style was capable of fighting and holding its own against an Inner Shadow despite Crassman still being an Outer Shadow. After many years of refinement, the Final Circle Style cemented as one of the most terrifying styles in the Black Legion Organization as it targets an opponent's soul and existence. Though not exactly an Anti-Narrative, Outer Shadow Dainsleif compared the style to be similar to the esoteric power in that direct strikes could lead to narrative deresolution due to its destructive nature.
  • Strike True: As a result of the style making use of Reaper's Chakra, John's strikes can bypass causality, allowing them to deal damage even if the strikes do not land on their target. When John battled Loyce Hal, the Demon Lord displayed speed that far surpassed the Inner Shadow, however, still took damage from John's slashes despite dodging his attacks.

The Aura of Death

• • Judgement and Penance: John assumes a defensive stance and overloads his body with Death Chakra. Doing so causes all life to be siphoned away, entering John's body in a manner similar to osmosis. This technique makes use of the world's nature to fill any "voids" of life energy by redirecting the life energy of any living being. By influencing the reality of the world through his chakra, John can bypass any higher rules that attempt to make a subject exempt from this phenomenon, as shown when Inner Shadow Avara attempted to use her status as a Life and Fertility Goddess to bypass the chakra redirection. When the technique was first used, John's appearance took on the form of a skeleton, implying that Judgement and Penance was a self-destructive technique. However, after being refined for many years and used again against Inner Shadow Empire, John's appearance took on the form of an angel, indicating that John had found a way to remove the self-destructive properties of the technique.
  • Shadow Guillotine: John slows his opponent down by influencing both the spatial reality as well as his opponent's motor functions using a chakra wave, then proceeds to channel a surge of chakra into his opponent's nervous system by making contact with their chin. Doing so releases an enormous amount of pressure which implodes all existing vessels and biological systems in his target, essentially decapitating them.
  • Sunsplitter: John unleashes a devastating arc with his scythe, disintegrating his opponent through sheer concussive chakra. The move, when paired with Strike True, deals tremendous amounts of damage to his target, however will consume a significant amount of chakra. The arc is said to be so powerful that it is capable of destroying entire planets and stars, something that Crassman had originally developed the move for.
  • Permeation: John coats his scythe with Death Chakra, adding upon a rule of narrative to bypass the defences of his targets and dealing damage regardless of how resistant they are to his attacks. As the nature of the attack is causality-based and bends the rules of reality, the required degree of chakra is enormous. John cannot use [Permeation] often, and by concentrating his chakra into his weapons to initiate the attack, his own defences and other boosts that would ordinarily be passively enhanced by his chakra will be temporarily deactivated to reroute his power.
• Intimidation: As a result of the nature of Crassman's chakra, the Inner Shadow passively emits an overwhelming wave of chakra to his surroundings that causes many to lose their will to fight, or dampen their ability to concentrate by being filled with a sense of fear. This power can lead to many of John's opponents being knocked unconscious without the Inner Shadow even taking action. The intimidation that John can emit is so frightening that it is said that even inanimate objects appear to "avoid" the Inner Shadow, as shown when Aaron Hope attempted to fire his MP7 at Crassman, only for the bullets to freeze in mid-air.
• Advanced Emission Chakra - The Aura of Death: As chakra is based solely on its user's life force, the power's nature is greatly influenced by the user's characteristics. In John's case, his chakra takes on the nature of Death in response to his guilt for killing Tina Hunt and his Auxiliary Shadows in exchange for Senkaku and the Shakujin. When channelling his chakra at higher intensities, the soul energy passively corrodes and overwhelms its targets by afflicting a sense of necrosis which withers at their lifeforce. Crassman's Aura of Death has been considered by many to be a notorious case of this, with many succumbing to his aura before the Inner Shadow even engages in battle. When John unleashed a part of his Aura at Aaron Hope and Sarah Ultear to test the two Shadows, the former seemingly froze in terror despite Ultear's life being in danger. Aaron would later admit that since the Aura's main target was Auxiliary Shadow Ultear, only a fraction of the Aura had been directed to him, which was enough to break the willpower of the Black Legion's strongest Outer Shadow.