Hei - Txt Redux

Hei (黒（ヘイ), Hei), also known as the Black Reaper (黒の死神, Kuro no Shinigami) or BK-201, is a human who gained Contractor powers. He is the older brother of Bai.

Appearance
Hei is a young man of slender build with black hair and dark blue eyes. When in his Li Shengshun persona, he wears the casual attire of an exchange student. When operating as a Contractor, Hei dons a bullet-proof trench coat and a white pierrot-inspired mask that fully conceals his face.

After the events that transpire at Hell's Gate, Hei lets his hair grow out and neglects shaving. His trenchcoat has become worn and he mostly wears a ski jacket.

Shortly after learning that Yin is still alive and in danger, Hei cuts his hair back to normal length, shaves, and returns to his "Black Reaper" attire.

Personality
As a member of the Syndicate, Hei regularly takes on false identities and personas for his missions and day to day life, such as Li Shengshun (李生舜 (リ・シェンシュン), Ri Shengshun): a good-natured, timid Chinese exchange student who tries to help others but otherwise generally keeps to himself.

Hei is a calculating assassin. Unusually for a Contractor, Hei exhibits and sometimes acts upon emotions. Hei also has a huge appetite, often surprising people with the amount he can eat. Despite having the power of a Contractor, Hei still has his human emotions. He deeply cares for his sister, Bai, and searches for her after her disappearance.

After Yin's disappearance, a drastic change came upon Hei's personality. He takes up drinking, becomes more ruthless, gets angry easily and would often lash out at Suou, slapping her across the face whenever she said something that angered him. He rarely showed such behavior prior to this, but after learning of Yin's whereabouts, Hei reverts back to his previous attitude showing his care for Yin, while also developing feelings of care toward Suou.

Background
Before he became a Contractor, Hei was a caring older brother who looked after his little sister Bai. Despite his age Hei was like a guardian to Bai. During a meteor shower his sister became a Contractor, with the ability to control and change matter on a molecular level, causing her to become the original BK-201. Soon after, Bai was recruited into the Syndicate. Although Hei hated killing, he did so anyway so as to be with his sister and not view her as just a senseless killer. He became so good at fighting, that even before he obtained his Contractor power, he became known as "The Black Reaper".

During the "Heaven's War", Bai went missing with the rest of Hei's team. After an incident with Bai, Hei came into possession of Bai's power and became the new "BK-201". He continued to serve the Syndicate in hopes of finding out what happened in South America's Heaven's Gate, and more importantly what happened to his sister. Hei also has a past history with the leader of the Evening Primrose and former Syndicate co-worker, Amber

Abilities
Peak Human Condition: Hei's contract powers are especially useful because of his amazing agility, speed, endurance, dexterity, and natural strength.

Expert Hand-to-Hand Combatant: Hei is obviously extremely skilled in martial arts and is an accomplished acrobat easily able to do backflips and mid-air cartwheels with little effort in terms of physical strain. Hei's natural abilities are so impressive that even without his contractor powers Hei is easily able to take on other contractors. A combination of these physical attributes coupled with what appears to be the most powerful contractor power as well as a lack of obeisance arguably makes Hei the strongest character in the series.

Tactician: Not unlike many Contractors, Hei possesses a very pragmatic and resourceful intellect; demonstrating a knack for improvisation during the heat of combat. Since Hei's contractor ability can only kill once in direct contact with the intended target, Hei often relies on taking his opponents by surprise in order to gain the advantage (as evidenced by his gambit during his first fight with Wei). His tactical unpredictability and resourcefulness coupled with his almost bullet-time speed makes him a daring foe.

Contractor Power
Molecular/Electricity Manipulation: Hei possesses the ability to generate and discharge electricity through conductive media (i.e. he cannot discharge it through air or concrete) at sufficiently high amounts to kill grown men or short out a building's electrical systems. The power is more than simple electric shocks, as he can alter matter on the quantum level. He has shown the ability to transform integral particles on the quantum level. He is capable of special particle luminance, meaning he is able to change molecules similar to how humans are changed into contractors. This ability is also one of the most, if not the most, powerful and coveted powers known as it is the only one capable of altering gate particles at will. This ability is not actually his as he is really only human, but it was granted to him when his sister fused with him. While in possession of the Meteor Fragment, Hei's powers were amplified to the extent that he was able to destroy a large portion of South America almost effortlessly.


 * Obeisance: None. This inheritance means that, unlike other contractors, Hei doesn't have an Obeisance. The reason behind this is that he is actually a human who has fused with his sister, a Contractor, therefore he has no price to pay.

Equipment

 * Mask: Hei wears a white mask with a purple lightning symbol over the right eye. It also has a thin red slit across the mouth.


 * Knife: His trademark weapon is a knife on a metal wire, which he uses as an offensive weapon, a grappling hook, or as a conduit through which to discharge his electricity.


 * Wire: In addition to using it with his knife, Hei also uses his wire with a carabiner attached to the end, which allows the wire to anchor to any object that it wraps around. This is also used to wrap around enemies necks and allows Hei to deliver lethal shocks.


 * Black Trench Coat: Hei's long black trench coat is bullet proof (often used as a shield), and works only with his powers.


 * Crossbow: To aid in infiltrating a building, Hei has made use of a collapsible crossbow to fire a rope large distances. He keeps the crossbow in a satchel.


 * Lie Detector Sticker: Hei wears a transparent sticker on the back of his neck to pass a lie detector test and conceal his identity as a Contractor while inside PANDORA.

The Black Contractor
Not long after arriving in Tokyo, Hei corners the Contractor Louis on the rooftop of a building. When Louis attempts to throw his opponent into the air, Hei grapples onto the railing and also onto Louis himself. This starts choking Louis, and he’s soon forced to the ground. Hei asks about a stolen item, but Louis only knows that a woman has it. Hei then contacts Yin to ask about the police, and she tells him how close they are. Hei then kills Louis despite his other partner’s objection. The next morning Hei arrives his new apartment building under the alias of a Chinese student named Li Shengshun. The landlady, Misuzu Oyama, mistakes him for the repairman and has him fix her TV. He accomplishes this after hitting the TV a few times and a surge of electricity somehow fixes it. The landlady eventually shows him up to his room but the two first run into his new neighbor, Shinoda Chiaki. She, however, doesn’t say anything to him and just leaves.

Later that night Shinoda runs to a nearby park and finds Hei there observing the stars with his telescope. Realizes that she’s being chased, he pushes her against the tree and kisses her so that the policemen only see what appears to be a couple kissing. Once they are gone, Hei apologizes for what he did. Hei introduces himself as Li, though she responds by thanking him and running off. Shortly after, Jean attempts to knock her out, but before he succeeds, Jean is knocked out by Li, who leads her away. As the two pass over a bridge, Jean suddenly materializes from a stone structure and knocks Hei over the railing as a train is passing below. Hei survives the fall off the bridge and uses his abilities to free Shinoda from the building she is being kept in. Shinoda runs a distance in the rain before she runs into Hei again at a street corner. He catches her as she collapses onto the ground and holds her as she starts to cry.

Hei carries Shinoda home, listening to her story as he goes. With her apartment having been ransacked, Shinoda stays at Hei's. Hei offers to run away together and says that coming here and meeting her was fate. When they hear footsteps outside, they go to a restaurant where he manipulates the situation to get Shinoda to offer to sell some of the classified information she has. While Shinoda is in the bathrooms, Huang warns him to quickly get what they’re after. Hei then notices Jean’s two men are coming into the building and he escapes with Shinoda thanks to Hei's usage of everyday items as weaponry the manage to get out the back. Shinoda bandages up Hei's injured arm and laments the encounter with the Contractor that killed her parents. Hei suggests that it would have been better if she had lost her memory about the Contractor, but Shinoda feels that if she lost it, then she would lose herself. Eventually, she gives Heil a key. The next day, the two take the train and eventually arrive at eow of lockers. Shinoda’s key opens one of them and inside is a book. Hei notices that Jean and his men are coming after them, so they hurrying away. On the street, he sees a police car and some officers in front of them, so he orders her to forget. She suddenly stops in her tracks and falls unconscious, but Hei continues walking.

Hei puts on his black coat and notices that the book is filled with blank pages. Jean and company catch up to him, aware that he is the one who killed Louis. Shinoda appears nearby and can’t believe what she just heard. In response, Hei reminds her of what he said about Contractors being liars. Alain then raises his gun at Shinoda, so Hei gets in the line of fire to protect her, but Shinoda is the one who fires. After Hei falls to the ground, Jean explains that this woman is just a Doll with Shinoda Chiaki's memories which they used as a trap to lure out Hei. Alain then shoots Hei a few more times in the back, but Hei then proceeds to kill Jean's goons. Jean then attempts to use his matter-exchange power on Hei, but Shinoda gets in the way and is killed instead. Jean escapes by exchanging himself with water. Huang then arrives on the scene and wonders if this was a decoy too. When he asks why Hei didn’t kill the Doll, Hei explains that she wasn’t a Doll - she was alive. Huang nevertheless still thinks of her as a Doll and of Contractors as killing machines. After Yin tracks down Jean, Hei is able to find and kill Jean quickly.

Gaiden
Following the Tokyo Explosion incident, Hei flees with Yin to Okinawa. They pose as newlyweds on their honeymoon while Hei tries to find a way out of the country. While there, he becomes concerned at how Yin starts acting on her own. Hei runs into a woman at the hotel who looks almost exactly like Amber. Yin notices this as well, and after seeing Hei talking with the woman and later feeling distant from him, Yin uses of her observation spirit that night. Although Hei wakes up and stops her from doing anything drastic, Yin sees enough to be able to say that the woman was not Amber but was indeed a Contractor. Yin tries to suggest that he get out of there, however Hei hugs her and vows not to leave her by herself.

The next day, Hei hears from the manager that the person who looked like Amber was actually a man. Realizing that the woman he had seen was an illusion, Hei find that Yin is gone, and he is subsequently attacked by more Contractors. Hei soon tracks Yin to an old building where he is attacked again, this time by the person who looks like Amber. This person’s ability was to control his opponent’s actions, but Hei is saved when she suddenly shots herself in the head, with Yin’s observation spirit appearing behind him. Hei then kills most of the rest of Yin’s captors and saves her, and he tells the remaining kidnapper to tell the Syndicate that he’d thwart whatever they conspired to do.

Hei and Yin make their way to Hong Kong, where they conspire with Qin to trap their pursuers by pretending to sell Yin. They are contacted by Xiao Jie and meet with her and her brothers to discuss the sale of Yin. The deal falls through when Yin says that Xiao intends to kill them anyway and Hei fights Xiao while Qin and Yin flee. Hei is rescued from a though battle by Yin's awakening power, which causes Xiao to kill her self with her own ability. He is then confronted by Yin's observer spectre, which he initially mistakes for Yin herself due to its tangible and human appearance. He realises it is not really her and is soon confronted by the surviving Xiao brother, who is killed by EPR survivors, including Amagiri.

They are brought to EPR's hideaway in the jungle where Hei recovers from his injuries. Amagiri tells him about how the Mikata Documents prophecize that a girl would appear with the power to change the world, asking him about Yin's evolution. Later, Yin tells him that there is something trying to talk to her and that it is more prevalent when Hei is with her. Hei says that they should part ways, but Yin refuses. Hei is then lured in to the jungle by Xi-Qi under the pretext of meeting with Amagiri. He is ambushed by some of the EPR Contractors, who try to kill him. Despite being injured, Hei defeats some of his assailants and escapes. When he finds that Yin is missing, he returns to the jungle only to find the Contractors are dead. The Dog tells him that it is the work of Xi-Qi.

With the assistance of The Dog and her Syndicate Doll, Hei attempts to rescue Yin from Xi-Qi. After stopping potential buyers for Yin from approaching Xi-Qi's location, he battles his way passed several Contractors and finds Yin and Xi-Qi. He grabs Xi-Qi and electrocutes him, but Xi-Qi reveals that he was making Hei see things and he was in fact holding Yin, whose awakening quickens. She kills the others present and The Dog possesses Hei and forces him to jump out a window. Outside the building, Hei is confronted by the both the observer spirit and Yin herself. Yin tries to make Hei kill her, but he refuses. There is an explosion and afterward Hei believes Yin to be lost. He returns to Qin's shop and begins to drink heavily. One day Oreille makes contact with him. Asking him to work for the CIA, she tells him that Yin is still alive.

Gemini of the Meteor
In Russia, Hei infiltrates the Pavlichenko home during a Russian raid of the house, where he finds Mikhail Pavlichenko dead. He leaves the house and finds April with Suou Pavlichenko. He fights and kills April and, mistaking Suou for her brother Shion, tries to get the Meteor Core from her. She escapes as Hei is attacked by Mina Hazuki, with both Hei, and his opponent retreating from the battlefield. Later he meets with his superior at the CIA, and discusses the events that took place. As Hei walks down the street, he sees wanted posters on him, which were put up by Suou. He tracks her down, and as he searches her for the Meteor Core, he finally realises that she is in fact Suou, and not Shion. As MI-6 and the Russian military arrive to capture Suou, he saves her, and attempts to escape. August 7 tracks them and a battle commences. Hei, defeats August 7, but is stopped from killing him by Suou. However, a trap was laid for Hei by the same people who he battled earlier. Some form of electric traps are set off and Hei's star vanishes. After Suou saves Hei in a trance by diving into the sea with him, Hei and Suou later have a tense conversation in which Suou states that he's catastrophically changed her life, and in which she says that Hei would be fine with killing even the person he loves, which Hei responds angrily to. Despite this, however, the two eventually bond to escape to Japan after Hei identifies a place through picture's in Suou's bag as Ikebukuro in Japan.

They eventually reach a station, but are greeted by Russian agents who attempt to stop them, Tanya being among them. During this battle, Hei discovers that he has lost his Contractor powers, but still efficiently deals with several Russian agents and manages to fight somewhat equally against Tanya and her ability. He is trapped under a train carriage, and Tanya is in a position to kill him until Nika intrudes, and is seemingly killed in the process. Hei escapes in light of this distraction, only to have a runaway train, commandeered by Genma, rush towards him, which he dodges. He later witnesses the activation of Suou's dormant Contractor abilities, and watches as she targets Tanya, Mina Hazuki and Genma Shizume, stopping a teary-eyed Suou from finishing a defenseless Tanya off.

Later, he, Suou, Mao in the form of Pecha, and July, with them for reasons unknown, are on a boat heading for Japan. Hei mentions Yin again, and states, sternly, that he'll kill 'her', which actually meant that he wants to kill Izanami.

When finally faced with the choice to let Suou finish the mission, Hei stops Suou at the last moment from shooting Yin by calling Suou's name, he wrapped his metal wire around the barrel of her gun,causing her shot to veer off course and miss it's mark. Powerless without his contractor abilities, Hei is unable to stop the submarine. When asked by Mao about having lost his power, he offered no answer as well as no answer of why he had saved Yin. Hei calls his employer, Madame Oreille, and she confirms she knew it was Yin. Hei feels he can not trust her anymore, but Madame Oreille points out she should the one be saying that after Hei could not kill Yin like he said he would. The chain of events now have the tandem of he, Suou, Mao and July head to Tokyo to chase the submarine, taking refuge in an old house. His change of heart continues now with him telling Suou she should not shoot because she is not suited for it. Suou proposes a deal to Hei, if he stops drinking, she will not shoot anymore. Hei doesn't give her a direct answer. He had used the last of his alcohol to put in their dinner to try and take care of the canned taste Suou had complained about. Hei goes outside as if to buy more, but when Suou asks, he says he is going to buy vegetables, and Suou decides to go with him.

Hei later secures the services of a underworld transporter for a way out of Hokkaido due to the need for he, Suou and July to evade capture. Hei is disguised as the father of a fallen son, played by July. Suou pretends to be Hei's daughter. Hei is double crossed by the transporter and July is kidnapped after the car he, Suou and Mao were in had its tire punctured. Suou pleads with Hei to go after July but Hei refuses. Suou pleads she needs July to use her power, Hei tells her once more he doesn't want her to use her powers any longer. She then angrily asks him why he was willing to save Yin and not July. This angers Hei as he responds harshly. Hei pursues Suou as July's observation ghosts lead Hei to Ilya Sokolov a ruthless contractor, who kills the transporter and abducts Suou, Mao and July. Hei perched on top of an eighteen wheeler gets side by side with Sokolov's car before jumping onto it. After breaking the window is able to coil his wire around the throat of Sokolov. Sokolv uses his power but the sound of Suou's voice is able to cause Hei to rebound off a passing truck back onto the car and continue to strangle Sokolov, an image of a observation ghost made by July provides a final last minute distraction. With Sokolov dead Hei recovers Suou, Mao and July as they board a train to Sendai.

Unaware of the fact that their enemies are on the same train, Hei gets caught by Repnin. Repnin offers him some wine but Hei rejects it saying he has quit drinking, so instead Repnin tells Hei to feel free and order whatever he would like from the menu. Hei orders a very large amount of food, shocking others in the car. Hei's over-eating has returned, indicating that his overall mental health is improving. Repnin attempts to recruit Hei but is rejected. Not giving up, Repnin goes into how there’s been a rumor of some Contractors in the past few years who have committed suicide due to the power of a certain Doll. He wants that Doll because he hates Contractors, and he would be grateful to Hei if Hei killed Ilya Sokolov since Sokolov had previously killed Repnin’s niece. Hei, however, turns the tables on Repnin by indicting him for not being able to do anything himself, and he stabs Repnin in the hand with a knife before escaping. Repnin radios Tanya to tell her to stop the train and leave with Suou. Tanya does exactly this, but Hei pursues and is able to buy enough time for Suou to escape her captor. Hei then finishes off Repnin. He then heads of to find Suou who was being pursued by Tanya who was shot by an unknown person, Hei, July, and Mao arrive on the scene, they think that Suou was the one who fired. Hei even tells her that it’s okay for her to shoot in order to defend herself, but all of this confuses Suou, and she decides to go a different way than Hei. July follows her, bringing along Mao, and Hei makes no attempt to stop her. Unknown to Suou and Hei, Tanya’s actual killer was Shion who had been sniping from a nearby building.

Inside an abandoned warehouse bathroom, Hei is shaving and has just cut his hair. He retrieves his bullet-proof coat, daggers, and wire from under a false floor in the warehouse. Hei is then seen in a disguise luring away Youko, who after realizing who he was tried to escape but was then knocked out by Hei. Genma and Misaki have realized that something is up, and they arrive just in time to see Hei carrying an unconscious Youko away. Hei manages to get away from them and knocks out Mina in a brief battle, so he’s able to escape with Youko.

Later on, Hei interrogates Youko and learns of the supposed disaster that’ll happen if Izanami and Izanagi meet and of the old woman who has the memory of the future. Youko also mentions Izanami killing Contractors and the 18th Research Building before Hei sedates her and departs. Madame Oreille is waiting for Hei outside and reveals that Suou has been captured. Hei is able to find Suou with Misaki Kirihara in front of Suou’s mother’s apartment building, and he attacks Misaki thinking that she’s Suou’s captor. Suou stops him from killing Misaki, and they leave her. Hei then takes Suou to another safe house, and she asks him to call out to her like he did when he didn’t want her to shoot previously. Hei instead tells her that he doesn’t know her as a copy--to him, she is the only Suou. This causes Suou to cry, and she tells him her conflicted feelings about him, including how lonely she was away from him. Later that night, Hei and Mao see the orange moon in the sky.

The next morning Suou wakes up to see Hei making a Russian dish called pelmeni. After Suou helps him cook and they all eat together, Hei gets ready to leave. Suou wants to go with him, but Hei says he will take care of his own problems reminds her that she has other things to do. Suou makes him promise to come back, and, afterward, Mao explains that Hei is going to see Yin and that Hei blames himself for changing her into something completely different from how she was before. Later on Hei finds Izanami inside the Hell’s Gate complex, but the box is empty. Instead, Mina is there waiting for him and attacks him.

Hei finds himself locked in battle with Hazuki Mina, and she’s eventually able to tie him up. After kissing him as part of her remuneration, she prepares to kill him, but Kobayashi steps in and reveals that it wasn’t Hei who killed Youko. The real culprit was Shizume Genma who had betrayed them for the CIA, and the Americans have taken over control of most of the organizations inside and outside Japan. Given all this, Mina has Kobayashi and Hei go on ahead while she goes to take care of Genma, and Kobayashi takes Hei to where Yin’s body is. The body, however, is now only an empty shell, and Yin’s awakened spirit has gone to the center of the Gate.

Hei finds Yin and Suou who is losing her memories. In anger of losing her memories Suou is about to shoot Yin but Hei shows up and stops her from shooting. As he holds her, he tells her that she won’t be needing her gun where she’s going next, and he promises that he’ll always be with her. He lays her down beside July after she loses consciousness, and Yin then tells Hei that it’s not too late to kill her. By the time Misaki arrives on the scene, she sees BK-201’s star lighting up in the sky, and a bright light envelops Yin as she’s touched by Hei. Misaki notes that she didn’t hear of Hei again, but she continues to believe that he’s still alive. BK-201's star is shown shining bright in the sky and Hei is seen holding a naked Yin and walking off into the distance.

Trivia

 * The number 201 appears frequently throughout the series.
 * Hei's apartment room number is 201, as in BK-201
 * In the first season, second opening, 0201 can be seen in the pane of glass Hei walks past.
 * In episode 11, 201 can be seen twice on Hei's passport, once under his picture (No018-00201). and again under his nationality (AR201).
 * In episode 19, Hei is asked to read the page 201 from the Black Book.
 * In episode 2 of Darker Than Black: Gemini of the Meteor, the number 201 can be seen in Souo's camera as she's taking photographs of her brother walking for the first time.