Psyga Delphinus

Psyga Delphinus (サイガ・デルフィ, Saiga Derufi) is a strangely playful symbiote with an unclear alignment. A sometimes-ally to E's; he seems to have an interest in Tsuruko increasing her power, such as giving Giselle the stone for the Hurricane Ring or giving Rosa the magic stone for the fourth and final Style Ring, but is otherwise manipulating all parties involved for some reason. He was (or rather, is) born from a hairdresser who became a serial killer known as Nightmare (ナイトメア, Naitomea), and is currently trying to get close to E in order to get some information from him. Unlike most symbiotes, Psyga considers himself a different case as he has kept all of his host's traits and personality, making him feel more human than symbiote. Delphinus is the first main antagonist of Daybreak Chapter: A Change of Perspective.

Appearance
Psyga is a tall man; with a physically intimidating stature and light blue hair curving out slightly horizontally with several clumps framing his forehead and running down to his nose—overall, it appears similar to that of a mullet. His hair is cut like it's a bother, leaving it somewhat uneven as if he doesn't care. His gaze is stern; though it is not without the caring aura that he exudes in every action. His skin is white as snow, and his eyes are a fierce crimson, which are said to bore into the souls of everyone he stares at.

As his true form, Psyga appears as a hulking armored beast vaguely resembling his human form; a combination of armor and bone with an orange/red sheen. The helmet area has a large crest-like shape and the muzzle-covering area has been removed to reveal a lipless mouth with long teeth shown and its eyes are a beady yellow. At the center of its chest is a glowing core of energy which spreads throughout its upper body. In place of hands are a pair of giant claws and in the "palms" are fully functional mandibles although this does not appear to hamper its ability to wield a sword in the least. Lastly, a slightly long tail has sprouted from the base of the spine area. Flowing from its back side are a pair of large, fiery wings.

Personality and Traits
Delphinus is sadistic by nature, despite appearing playful and carefree with a habit of making a girly giggle when things go his way. However, he sometimes gets very serious to see what happens next. Unlike most symbiotes, he tends to refer to symbiotes by their hosts' names, which never fails to annoy fellow symbiotes. He is also a calculating trickster who doesn't mind using his own kind for his schemes and cares little for consequences, including playing an important part in orchestrating the Dark Dragon's demise at Tsuruko's hands, and leading Tsuruko to the Tiger Symbiote, Aradia, and having them fight when the former is trying to save Kaguya, whom he kidnapped. He is also rather fearless as he manages to keep up his playful nature even when E got angered enough to threaten to destroy him, and instead of merely running away, he runs up to him and explains his earlier scheme.

His cleverness probably rivals that of E's, as despite being asked to help out with things initially, E now wants to keep his distance instead after actually seeing the man in action. Though he is not as powerful as E, his cleverness makes him very dangerous. Delphinus also has his own agenda to fully understand E's plan, intending to use fellow symbiotes to fulfill his desire to know the full story of the man's overall goal.

Unlike other symbiotes who are monsters capable of taking a human guise in the form of the hosts they are born from, Delphinus managed to properly retain his human self both in body and in mind and thus far, being the only symbiote capable of doing so. As such, he does not see himself as a symbiote like others and prefers to be called "Psyga" instead of "Arrester Phoenix", going so far as to repeatedly tell others that he is not the Arrester Phoenix Symbiote. In battle, Delphinus gives off the impression of a cat playing with a mouse, a predator toying with prey for his own amusement.

It was revealed that Delphinus had been a serial killer before he became a symbiote, killing and raping women, as his former girlfriend betrayed him; which is the reason why he still has his old personality, as he had already fallen into despair and into madness before becoming a symbiote. It could also be the reason why Delphinus is trying to get close to Excellen, so he could kill her for his own twisted amusement. It is later implied that he raped numerous girls before his ex-girlfriend, as he says that he had many girls who "loved and admired" him, his ex-girlfriend being just one of them. When Tsuruko calls him out on this, he laments that the woman who rejected him is the cause of his misery. Tsuruko, however, denied it as a cause for Delphinus' personality, claiming that Psyga was already born this way and rejection had nothing to do with it.

History
Delphinus is a complicated character to describe, because he actually has two personas - one is his 'real' identity as Delphinus, a member of the Rune Knights and talented hairdresser - and the other is his secret identity as Nightmare, a serial killer of unparalleled genius who preys on female victims; before Delphinus became Nightmare, he was a hairdresser / homicidal killer who went after girls with long black hair while wearing a white dress after his heart was broken.

As Nightmare, Delphinus killed many people, including his previous partner Zanma Zaitsuhara's daughter and wife. He faced Zanma as Nightmare and gave him a choice: join them (presumably as another demon) or be killed and have his consciousness absorbed into Nightmare's. Zanma, of course, chose neither and committed suicide. After those events, Nightmare disappeared from history during 100 years, presumably assuming E's dirty work, in exchange of the promise of eternal life.

Equipment
Rapture (ラプチャー, Rapuchā): Rapture is the name of Delphinus' personalized weapon—in essence, they are dual scissor-like reverse blades. They can be combined into massive shears, used for sweeping, heavy strikes. The dual blades appear to be made entirely out of organic material, with teeth, flesh and an abundance of eyes covering its surface, making it an extremely terrifying and grotesque weapon to gaze upon. As its blade is soaked in blood it grows in power, yet it manages to shine a polished red. These blades allow him to slice through most materials with ease, to the point of cutting through chains once combined. When Delphinus draws Rapture, a thin layer of magical particles attach themselves to it, before they quickly whirl around at high speeds, simulating a chainsaw-like effect which drastically increases its cutting power. Of course, Delphinus can use his own symbiote powers to set off a chain reaction in the iron which composes the blades, igniting the blade in silver flames which allows Delphinus to unleash a series of fire-element techniques. It also can create a crescent energy blast to attack enemy as many as Delphinus wants. It should be noted that despite appearing rather fragile, Rapture can slice straight through the tissue of a living body and sever arteries; it has been shown that the Rapture can cleave straight through magical barriers and other body-related defenses. Interestingly, his favorite murder weapon is a pair of scissors. Other than this, not much is known about Rapture—however, it does indeed seem to be nothing but an ordinary weapon, albeit heavily stylized.

Ways of Combat
Master Swordsmanship Specialist: Delphinus uses Two Sword Style (二刀流, Nitōryū); which is exactly as the name meaning is: it focuses on wielding two blades at the same time. It is an extremely powerful sword style; given by the simple math of "A single sword has a power of one hundred. Therefore, two swords have a power of two hundred." Delphinus is noted in particular to be highly proficient in the use of dual swords, and is capable of defeating almost any opponent with both swords at a single time. Furthermore; he appears to be able to alter the cutting power in both hands, allowing for quite the deception when the stakes are high. His strikes are notably fast, but also powerful. Delphinus becomes an overwhelming offensive force; he can spin in a manner similar to a buzz-saw, or else employing a series of unrelenting attacks switching the locations as well as the blades with which he attacks, leaving no openings; even creating a ring of damage just by twirling the blades in a circle. Rather; he appears to use exceptionally swift slashes, knocking out his enemy effortlessly. Additionally; through much experience, Delphinus also holds much skill in the use of acrobatic fighting with his swordsmanship. Including rather extreme bodily movements such as flips and cartwheels, among other things, Delphinus is fully capable of overwhelming an enemy through the sheer speed and direction of his attacks. His slashes are thought to be so precise and fast that many are unable to visualize them until after they have been hit, and even then, the delayed reaction would usually lead them bleeding to death—from the moment of entering the battle, Delphinus is extremely cruel, attacking and brutalizing his opponents with his dual blades, watching their hopes fade away as he tortures them until they are begging to die, taking great delight in their suffering.
 * Tsunotōkage (角刀影, Shadow of the Horn Blade): Delphinus' "finishing move"; when preparing to utilize it, he waits for the opponent to make their move. Then, he crosses his two swords across his chest, rushing towards his opponent at high speed as they move towards him before slicing through by swinging the swords across his chest, resulting in a descending diagonal-crossing slash which also generates the illusion of a horizontal cut from the left and right due to it's extreme speed; the slash of the sword generates twin blasts of pure darkness; which expand in the form of several destructive tornadoes that have the capability to obliterate an entire skyscraper at full strength. Additionally, the swords are twisted during the slash for added force, resulting in this attack striking multiple opponents instead of one. There is a single brief moment when the two swords are all lined up behind each other. If one can block them at that instant, the entire technique will be rendered useless. Doing so however, requires an enormous amount of strength, more so than Delphinus himself or else he'll just push through the block and connect anyways. The effect of this attack leaves an X-shaped stream of blood. Whenever he wishes, Delphinus can wrap the tornadoes around his blades, allowing him to fire it at will by putting his own magical energy into the attack, but repetitive use will drain his energy until he is too weak to fire it.

Physical Prowess
Immense Speed: Being the Arrester Phoenix, Delphinus' speed enables him to jump to the top of lamp posts with ease, leap from rooftop to rooftop and match the speed of even Zanma. He can effectively use his agility to use the battlefield to his advantage, jumping from wall to wall to keep his opponents unsure of his attack patterns. Delphinus moves at such a speed that his foes more often than not can't register his movements, until he's made them; he's also skilled enough to dodge at tremendous speeds, even if he's assaulted from behind. It should be noted that a burst of crimson is emitted from his feet with every step he takes, augmenting his speed even further. Delphinus is capable of defying normal physics and zipping around with tremendous speed; and is able to move backwards at full speed just as well as forwards. Due to such speed, he is able to scale right up the walls of buildings, or similar structures, and can also run right over water. When moving, Delphinus continuously recycles magical energy in the atmosphere and sends the gathered energy through his feet in a permanent cycle of revolving, giving his feet a blazing crimson glow and enabling Delphinus to utilize a constant version of high-speed augmentation, giving him the ability to skate through the ambient eternano which are dispersed the atmosphere without anything impeding his progress; moving at such speeds to the point that it almost impossible to catch him via one's eyesight, rendering him very much unable to spot, no matter how hard one tries to. This turns Delphinus into a highly destructive projectile when he accelerates to extremely high speeds, allowing Delphinus to defy gravity if he wishes, zipping about at insurmountably tremendous velocities; while using extremely skilled acrobatics that make even the fastest of mages unable to keep up with the Arrester Phoenix. He can also use his super speed ability to gain an advantage on his enemies by confusing and disorienting them. His speed ability also makes him able to phase through walls.

Low Strength: Despite being trained in martial arts; Delphinus' physical strength is really nothing to write home about- it is very much below average- a major contributing factor to this is his low physical durability, and the fact that it is virtually impossible for him to take a 'serious' hit; though it is still very much above the average human. Because of this, he, at his strongest, is capable of breaking wood and he uses quick kicks and jabs to produce extra pain to the opponent, and while at first these blows do not seem as if they are inflicting any particular harm, the damage racks up frighteningly fast, but due to his low durability, Delphinus, with his skills in swordsmanship of the dual-bladed kind, is capable of utilizing hit and run tactics as he darts towards and away from the enemy, dealing more and more damage as the cold steel of his blades cuts into their flesh.

Low Durability: Delphinus is much weaker in physical strength compared to other members of the cast, since his legs buckle inwards as he slides whereas many of the other cast keep them bent strong. He also gives the impression of being as weak as ice, though the grievous wounds that he receives throughout his battles imply that he is somewhat tough as well. Interestingly, Delphinus gets blown to bits worse than any other character in the series, and actually often seems to be the most frail character in the series given that a bullet once took his arm off, but it doesn't matter since he just regenerates from it.

Magical Abilities
High Magical Power: Delphinus is noted to be in possession of a vast amount of magical power; when released in the form of an aura, it takes the form of a black phoenix which is known to strike fear into the hearts of his foes. The sheer density of his magical power is enough to decimate the surroundings, and it is for this reason that he rarely, if ever, has to fight himself.

Darkness Magic
Darkness Magic (闇の魔法, Yami no Mahō): Darkness Magic is a Caster-Type Magic which utilizes the element of darkness; Delphinus is a master at utilizing Darkness Magic. It is a type of Magic which allows him to manipulate and control destructive Dark Magic. This Magic has a physical form used for destroying objects, blocking enemies' attacks and picking up objects; consistently, it is a pulsating purple. When using it, he more often than not shapes his attacks into the form of waves or arcs of darkness, which he can use in various ways. The darkness can be channeled to a variety of effects, both as an absence of light and a solid substance: one can also control and manipulate the beings that exist there, create and dispel shields and areas of total darkness, create a variety of constructs and weapons and, teleport himself through massive distances via shadows. The malefic nature of this Magic tends compliments his sinister nature, and it is known to make people physically ill and cold in nature.

More often than not, Darkness Magic compliments Delphinus' way of combat; Delphinus' already impressive sword strikes are augmented drastically in both offensive and defensive manners as he can cover his own body with darkness; allowing him to use his own body as a make-shift weapon unique to himself, drastically increasing his close-quarters skills. The darkness can take on a variety of functions, such as offensives, supplements, and altering of elements, allowing him a great deal of flexibility. Delphinus can turn his body into a shadow that cannot be touched by normal means. He is also able to fade himself into shadows to move swiftly, dodging efficiently and making surprise attacks; however, if he is caught while in a tangible form, or by another person in shadow form, he is then vulnerable to attack. It allows him to bend his own shadow for various purposes, such as offense and defense, allowing him a great deal of flexibility. Delphinus can merge with his shadow and the shadows of others, granting him the element of surprise. The shadows produced by Delphinus are able to be utilized in several different ways, allowing for a high level of adaptability; the shadows are able to be released in freeform, as condensed, or even molded into the shape of a weapon, taking on the properties of said chosen shape.

Delphinus is able take out multiple opponents with just one attack and capture people, sinking them into the depths of his shadow. The darkness and shadows generated by this ability cannot be penetrated by light and sometimes not other energies either. The shadows are either complete, effectively rendering useless all light sources within the area, or hollow to allow the interior to be lit. The shadows can take on a variety of shapes, from sharp spikes to tendril-like hands. Delphinus can manipulate, slice through or devour anything that comes in contact with his shadow and it appears invulnerable to conventional physical harm, although it can be deflected by sufficiently hard objects; however, it is capable of slicing through magic like a hot knife through butter. Delphinus can also see and talk through wherever his shadow can extend, slaughtering anyone who trespasses upon his newly gained ground; in fact, he has extended his shadow to cover the entire area when he uses this magic, allowing him to attack whenever he wishes through the cracks in many buildings or even the sidewalk. The shadow can consume living things and assimilate the abilities and strengths of that particular victim, along with their corresponding weaknesses.
 * Dead Crusher (デッドク・ラッシャー, Deddo Kurasshā): Delphinus' basic projectile technique; when using it, he condenses magical energy within Rapture to its utmost limit; transferring the energy to the tip of the blades while crossing his arms, lighting a spark of energy on the blade, gathering enough energy to allow the spark to grow to the size of giant boulder, which is pulsing a dark red. From there, Delphinus swings the blades forwards, releasing a sphere which is thrown towards the target with great force, capable of causing large-scale damage and destruction. The whiplash of the attack can be quite huge, usually blowing apart anything behind him at the time of attack. The sphere is powerful enough to strike multiple enemies and even two adjacent foes simultaneously; violently pushing the intended opponent and objects around them away from him with overwhelming blunt force. The attack seems to possess highly destructive power, having caused great damage to the area it affected, destroying the ground and piercing through buildings alike, and appears to have a long range, wreaking havoc wherever it passes, as shown when it crossed the entire distance of a city block, generating a large explosion. Delphinus can use this technique in several different manners, such as striking the ground, creating an omnidirectional blast which knocks away incoming attacks, or slashing at the ground, upturning it and crushing everything in its path; the flight path of the Dead Crusher can be controlled via telekinesis, and at its full power, it can blast through numerous buildings.
 * Snake Edge Fang (蛇刃牙, Jabaki): When performing the Snake Edge Fang spell, Delphinus launches a snake-like chain that has incredible range; chain has minimal stun properties if it even so much as nicks his foe. This chain can clash with attacks and projectiles, and once he latches onto something, he can use the chain to pull himself in in the blink of an eye; more often than not, the opponent is unable to see his vicious movements as he speeds towards them, assaulting them rapidly and viciously while zipping around the battlefield. This technique is often times reckless especially if not done properly as Delphinus could accidentally propel himself into a hazard or worse. Indeed, Delphinus has little to no control after launching himself, being unable to change directions in mid-flight, and is only able to (barely) decelerate before landing. The sheer force of his acceleration also causes the darkness which composes the chains to surge violently, which effectively coats him in his own power for the duration of the subsequent movement. As a result the motion is quite destructive, completely at odds with its name and since he can move to anything he made contact with, he can literally appear to be in several places at once. This technique is also capable of landing devastating attacks against larger opponents as shown against the dragon he is first shown battling; when utilizing Snake Edge Fang, he more often than not unleashes a powerful slash mere moments before striking the opponent, which due to the increased velocity on an already extremely swift move, can deal overwhelming damage, to the point that it can blow even large opponents away by a few meters.
 * Immersion Within The Darkness (闇内浸, Yaminaihita): A supportive spell more than anything else; when performing Immersion Within The Darkness; Delphinus fades into a shadow of darkness; this enables him to move swiftly, dodging efficiently and making surprise attacks. However, if he is caught while in a tangible form, or by another person in shadow form, he is then vulnerable to attack; traversing a distance and reemerging in any place that he wishes. Delphinus has been able to travel a maximum distance of about .85 miles (4,480 feet) in this way. Due to being faded into shadows, it disorients his sense of direction, and the light of the earth blinds him for several seconds upon reemergence) teleportation is a rather risky proposition. It also takes his several seconds to fade into shadows, preventing Delphinus from moving out of the way of such high-velocity danger as a bullet. Interestingly, he can merge with his shadow and the shadows of others, granting him the element of surprise.
 * Shadow Sewing (影縫い, Kagenui): This spell allows for the creation and control of what are most likely multiple organic tendrils formed from darkness. These tendrils are very dangerous and are capable of several actions, due to their organic nature the only feasibly way to control them is through direct mental manipulation; the tendrils move at the whim of Delphinus himself, it's primary function is to create the tendrils which then make direct contact with an enemy and then temporarily integrate with their body. Once connected the spell is able to perform a number of actions, including overwriting commands from the target's brain with those from Delphinus. In essence this means that as long as a direct connection is maintained the target is under complete control of the spell, alternatively the spell can be used as a means of information acquisition; brute-force hacking its way into the target's brain and then downloading the contents, making it very difficult to defend against, rendering standard defenses nearly useless—the moment that the tendrils make contact with the foe, the magical and physical power siphoned off is then transferred back to Delphinus for his own use. More often than not, Delphinus utilizes this spell to restrain his female target before ending their life, but not before doing more unsavoury things to their unfortunate bodies.
 * Dark Branding of a Thousand Souls (千魂冥烙, Senkon Meiraku): Delphinus' ultimate attack; when performing Dark Branding of a Thousand Souls, he crosses his arms above his head to begin activating the attack, as all nearby shadows are drawn towards him, forming a small black orb which rapidly grows in size and also gains small white lights inside it, similar to the night sky. The orb creates a gravitational field around itself, gradually getting larger, as well as growing stronger and stronger. Such orb possesses immense attraction force, and is thus capable of attracting everything in a wide area towards itself, gradually getting larger, as well as growing stronger and stronger, drawing them in via overwhelming gravitational pull which never ceases, only becoming more and more powerful as moments pass, creating a swirling vortex that pulls in and "devours" any and all objects in the vicinity. The shadows utilized in this technique possesses immense attraction force, and is thus capable of attracting everything in a wide area towards itself, subsequently sucking it up, before Delphinus' takes aim at his target, unleashing the orb towards them at high speeds, tracking the foe's magical energy signature before it impacts; grinding into the foe. The orb appears to be incredibly dense, holding a tremendous amount of gravity to crush the opponent in a similar manner to a black hole. Its power is said to be comparable to the power of an actual meteor; the force with which the attack explodes has enough power to easily hollow out an entire mountain. Dark Branding of a Thousand Souls is said to erase the foe's soul from existence.

Time Magic
Time Magic (時間の魔法, Toki no Mahō): Time Magic is a powerful Caster Magic that enables Delphinus to control the essence of time itself; it is his trump card, and not many people are aware that he is in possession of the magic—in fact, he had obtained it from The Exalted One, who bestowed it upon him in return for serving her goals. He can manipulate the flow of time of a general area or a specific target in various manners, the basics revolving around accelerating, slowing, stopping and even rewinding or looping. The range of area affected is proportional to the mastery of Delphinus, with top levels can affect the entire space and time continuum. Since "time" exists and flows within "space", the two are interrelated, and by manipulating time, one is basically distorting space proportionally. It can be even used to stop an object's "time" by freezing it in midair. Delphinus can also rewind a damaged object's "time" to restore it to its original state, just like turning the ice back into water; and he produce 'bubbles' of time that show the various potential things that the item could do and then pick one of the timelines whenever he wants to. The effects of this relative distortion can vary, such as controlling time of a mere object or person may not affect the space he resides in, but to twist the time-stream of a region of space can cause the area itself to warp. Due to time existing in one space, manipulating it cannot affect another dimension.
 * The World (ザ・ワールド, Za Wārudo): When utilizing The World, Delphinus is capable of stopping time, albeit only for roughly three seconds. When using this spell, Delphinus often seems to be teleporting or moving at impossible speeds; so it was debunked that Delphinus cannot move at light speed, but merely, he is subconsciously using The World to move. This ability seems to be extremely exhausting, and the intervals of stopped time that Delphinus is able to maintain decreases throughout his later appearances. The nature of the time stop follows the flow of time in the real world, as shown when the duration of time Delphinus was capable of stopping was drastically reduced when a foe accelerated time. This ability can last for a maximum of five seconds; though it will not increase beyond that. When using this ability, Delphinus often seems to be teleporting or moving at impossible speeds. The ability is best known for Delphinus' activation and cancellation phrases "Time, stop!" (時よ止まれ, Toki yo tomare!) and "And now, time resumes." (そして,時は動き出す, Soshite, toki wa ugokidasu).

Trivia

 * Delphinus is a foil for Tsuruko because he's a symbiote with a human trapped inside, while Tsuruko is a human with a symbiote trapped inside. But they're also foils in another way. Tsuruko's symbiote, Star Phoenix, ultimately became more heroic due to Tsuruko's own heroism. Delphinus retained his humanity because he was already a monster to begin with. They're not just foils in what they are, but who they are.