Ryan Bramble

Ryan Bramble was a human-oni hybrid who appeared in Supernatural: Rite of Passage.

History
Ryan was conceived by his mother's rape by an unknown assailant, in reality the oni Tora. Ryan's mother died giving birth to him and his mother's husband raised Ryan as he'd promised her to do so, but treated Ryan distantly as he was too much of a reminder of the man who raped his wife. As a result, Ryan grew up alone and uncared for to the point that he was usually alone in pictures and rarely saw his father who did everything in his power to avoid Ryan when he was around.

During his junior year of high school, Ryan met and fell in love with Sumiko Jones and they began dating. During his senior year, Ryan grew six inches to become a height of six foot five but was clumsy and not graceful or athletic. During this time, Sumiko started her Lion's Truth blog and focused more attention on the blog than Ryan who began to feel trapped and helpless as his grades dropped, his future prospects began to look grim and he felt like he was losing his girlfriend.

During a school evacuation due to a bomb threat, Sumiko interviews Ryan for her blog about what he thinks the evacuation is really about. Ryan suggests it to be a drug search, but Sumiko dismisses his idea and suggests that it has something to do with the strange and deadly accidents happening recently in town. Spotting a fellow student who was in the vice principal's office when the bomb threat came in, Sumiko heads over to talk to her while Ryan is intercepted by a teacher who dislikes him, causing Ryan to become even more depressed from the way his life is going. When Sumiko returns, Ryan tries to bring up his fears to her but she dismisses it as being a teenager before being distracted by live-blogging a fight between Dalton Rourke and Tyler Shackleford. Sumiko tells Ryan she hopes to gain enough hits on her blog to monetize and fulfill her monetary needs so she can figure out what she wants to do later on in the future. As Sumiko spots Jesse Trumball and speculates in her blog that he was the one who called in the bomb threat, Ryan gets annoyed with her and tries to talk her out of it to no luck. As Sumiko focuses once more on her blogging, Ryan grows more depressed about the distance between them that only seems to be growing.

Ryan returns home from school to find it empty as his father is still at work. Unpacking his backpack, Ryan grows even more depressed by the sight of his last calculus exam upon which he got a D when he used to get at least Bs in math. With his decreasing grades and Sumiko's growing distance, Ryan becomes more and more that his life has no real meaning and anyone who thinks otherwise is just fooling themselves. Before Ryan can wallow too long in misery, Sumiko calls him and invites him to come over for awhile, something Ryan accepts.

Arriving at Sumiko's house, Ryan is greeted at the door by Sumiko and is offered dinner by her mother which he tries to decline due to his desire to appear self-sufficient despite his growing feelings that he will soon lose everything he cares about. Sumiko leads Ryan up to the room, flirting with him and telling her mother she has something to show him on her blog. After sitting down, Ryan asks for aspirin for his worsening headache and makes out with Sumiko after she gets some for him. However, to Ryan's great frustration, Sumiko stops kissing him to show him what she's been doing with her blog, once again letting her obsession get in the way of their relationship. Sumiko explains to Ryan that she is expanding her blog since school will soon no longer be relevant and that she thinks there's more to the recent bizarre accidents than simple accidents. Sumiko theorizes that its a force that could be man-made, a government experiment or terrorists and continues to insist that Jesse Trumball called in the fake bomb threat. As Ryan's headache grows, he begins to lose his temper to his surprise and nearly hits Sumiko when he thinks she calls him a big bozo. As Sumiko tells him about how she has learned that none of the airbags had gone off in the recent pile-up, Ryan snaps and tells Sumiko that all she cares about is the blog and he's sick of it. In his fit of temper, Ryan breaks Sumiko's flatscreen computer monitor and she orders him out, breaking up with Ryan without even allowing him to apologize. Ryan leaves, unable to understand why he acted as he did and feeling alone and completely lost since Sumiko was the last anchor holding him in place and he pushed her away.

That night, Ryan suffers from a series of nightmares as he sleeps. In his first nightmare, Ryan is in an Amazonian-like jungle and desperately hanging onto some vines after falling over a cliff. While Ryan wants to call out for help, an instinct makes him think its a bad idea. As Ryan's grip loosens, Sumiko arrives and Ryan calls out to her to find something to pull him up. Instead, Sumiko drops the monitor Ryan broke on him, hitting Ryan's right hand causing him to lose his grip with that hand. As Ryan yells that Sumiko could've killed him, she drops a countertop microwave on Ryan's head, causing him to fall to his death in the nightmare. Ryan then goes from that nightmare to another where he is in a hallway with no exit and the doors opening to various horrors such as a void, a cell-like room that tries to trap him and a room with its walls and floor made of pulsing grey matter that starts to ooze sticky black liquid. As Ryan tries to figure out how to escape from the hallway, it starts to tremble violently and the lights start breaking. As an explosion rocks the building, Ryan ducks into another doorway for cover from the apparent earthquake, only to have the shaking cause him to fall into the void in the room and land with his left arm and both legs bound.

After his final nightmare, Ryan wakes up in the morning, covered in sweat and with a high temperature and a killer headache. Ryan also finds two strange lumps on his head that he attributes to falling out of bed and hitting his head and changes before going to talk to his father. Ryan finds his father preparing to go out and tries to talk to him, but his father blows him off, telling Ryan they'll talk later and he'll leave him money for pizza before quickly leaving. After his father's departure, Ryan finds a couple of pictures peaking out from beneath the closet door and discovers that the pictures his father gave Sumiko for the collage she made for his 17th birthday party were never properly put away. Ryan looks through the pictures and laments over the life he could've had if his mother hadn't died in childbirth and his father hadn't been so distant from him. Ryan puts the pictures away in the box, noting as he does so that all of his fingernails have blackened, confusing Ryan as to the cause as it doesn't cause him pain to push on them as they would if they were bruised and its strange for all ten fingers to be bruised at the same time. As Ryan goes to put the box away, he's hit with a bout of massive pain and dizziness, causing him to bite his lip and drop the box. Ryan briefly wonders if he had a seizure, but decides not to go to the ER unless his symptoms worsen as his father can't afford it. As Ryan picks up the dropped box, he discovers that the fall jarred open a hidden compartment slightly. Curious, Ryan opens the compartment and discovers a handwritten letter from his mother to his father that Ryan never knew existed. Ryan leaves the room with the letter and reading it, learns about an attack that his father on his mother had never told him about and how she knows it will be difficult for his father to support her decision to keep her child but is glad to have his support.

As the hours pass, Ryan's fingernails darken completely and become coarse and so sharp he is able to carve his name into a tabletop with one. Ryan also starts suffering from a rage that threatens to consume him and that he is barely able to keep in control. Sumiko eventually arrives to make peace with Ryan who wears an old blue hoodie with the hood up and his hands in the pockets to hide his state from Sumiko. Though Ryan accepts Sumiko's apology and promises to pay for her monitor, he ends their relationship permanently, telling Sumiko that she will go to college and forget about him anyway so its better to end it now. In truth, Ryan is afraid that he has become infected with something and is trying to push Sumiko away for her own protection, ultimately slamming the door in her face. However, Ryan knows that Sumiko very likely saw right through him.

As Ryan contemplates what's happening to him and his mother's letter, his father arrives home to get some mail that he had forgotten to bring with him. Ryan confronts his father about the contents of the letter and accuses him of treating Ryan like a neighbor's kid he had to watch too long and not caring about him at all. His father tries to deny it at first, but Ryan points out how his whole life his father has acted like he could care less about him. Ryan's father finally tells him that every morning he reminds himself that Ryan is his mother's son, but when Ryan asks, admits that he is not Ryan's real father. Ryan's father explains to him that his mother was raped by a man who the police were never able to catch and though he tries to remind himself that Ryan is his mother's son, all he sees when he looks at Ryan is the man who raped his wife. Ryan's father tells him that despite the doctors best efforts, his mother died giving birth to him and made her husband promise to take care of Ryan. Ryan is enraged to realize that while his father kept his promise and is now getting emotional talking about his mother, he did nothing more than watch over him and give him a place to live, showing Ryan no real affection. Having learned that his entire life has been a lie and knowing that he has gotten more affection from his teachers to random strangers, Ryan gives into his rage and throws the table over and smashes the dish drainer full of dishes before attacking his father. Ryan beats his father down and nearly kicks his head in, but controls himself at the last moment because he realizes that if he murders his father, he will lose Sumiko forever. Ryan leaves the house, knowing that even though he pushed Sumiko away, he can't accept the possibility of a future without her and feeling that although Sumiko saved his father, he isn't sure if anything can save him.

Horrified by what's happening to him, Ryan hides between two dumpsters behind a small shopping center. Ryan's rage threatens to overwhelm him, pushing Ryan to go back and murder his father. When a rat appears, seemingly angry at Ryan invading its turf, Ryan grabs it and viciously kills the rat, further horrifying him and causing Ryan to throw up. Everything that has been happening to Ryan convinces him that he has some kind of fatal disease like mad cow disease that drives you crazy before you die and calls Sumiko to hear her voice one last time. However, Sumiko is able to tell that its him so Ryan asks her if she's heard about any bizarre diseases that are affecting people, but Sumiko thinks he's just asking about her blog and tells him to forget the blog before asking what he's doing. Ryan tells Sumiko that he's learned that his father is not his father and he is a product of rape. Ryan refuses Sumiko's offer to come to him, claiming that he needs time to process and apologizing for breaking her monitor. Ryan thanks Sumiko for being a good influence since his love for her had stopped him from killing his father, but doesn't elaborate on why he's thanking her. Sumiko promises that things will get better for him and after pretending to agree, Ryan hangs up and ignores Sumiko's further calls feeling that he has to face whatever's happening to him alone. He then hears a voice inside his head calling him to come to it.

Following the voice in his head, Ryan travels to the abandoned Hawthorne's Department Store in the industrial district and is confused by why he has been summoned there until he is joined by Dalton Rourke and Jesse Trumball. Ryan notices the two possess similar lumps on their foreheads to his own as well as red hair coming in at the root and darkened nails. When the three stand together side by side, Ryan notices their near-uniform height and finally realizes that he, Dalton and Jesse are brothers. Ryan announces his realization to Dalton and Jesse and they are joined by a man who introduces himself as Tora, their father. Ryan is horrified to realize that the horns possessed by Tora are what is growing on the three of them and angrily confronts Tora about him raping Ryan's mother. Tora dismisses the rape as a human concern and tells the three teenagers that the time has come for them to rise above their humanity and become oni. Tora states that the process has already begun with the three already noticing their physical changes, but they must willingly complete the final rite of passage to become full oni. When Dalton questions what will happen to them if they refuse to finish the process to become full oni, Tora informs them that they will die stillborn, half human, half oni and it will be an excruciatingly painful end. Tora instead offers them power to rise above the human "sheep" and achieve their rightful destiny. Ryan questions if they will be as powerful as Tora, wanting the power to be able to kill Tora and avenge his mother's death. Tora assures Ryan that one day they will be, but first time is short and he will introduce them to the woman who will become his mate and their oni mother. Leading them inside, Tora proclaims that the next day, they will be complete as a family, but that night, Ryan, Dalton and Jesse will become oni. While Ryan is disgusted at the thought, he is horrified to notice that Dalton and Jesse are excited and realizes that his brothers actually want to become oni.

Entering the store, Ryan spots Kim Jacobs tied up and looking nearly hopeless and wonders if his own mother had gone through the same ordeal. Ryan attempts to help Kim, but is restrained by Tora who tells him that Kim is of no concern of Ryan's and threatens to kill him if he doesn't comply. Ryan and his brothers are then lined up by Tora who explains to them that a taste of his blood will imbue them with strength beyond that of humankind at which point they will go to a human gathering to proclaim their dominance with a slaughter. Tora tells them that while the three will have weapons to aid them, they must make at least one kill with either their nascent fangs or hardened fingernails and once their skin runs red with the blood of their victims, the final stage of their transformation will begin and with the dawn, they will be reborn as oni. Ryan questions what will happen if they don't do this by dawn and is informed that their bodies will reject their dual nature and they will experience an incredibly excruciating end which Tora believes won't happen with his guidance. Tora then slices open his wrist and chants in a guttural language before telling the three that a taste of his blood will give them some of Tora's strength and invulnerability, enough to get them through the ritual until they become full oni and can generate their own power. While disgusted by the idea, Ryan takes the blood when its offered to him in order to get the power it gives him in hopes of getting an edge against Tora so that he can kill him. However, tasting the oni blood causes Ryan's oni half to become stronger and he begins struggling to contain his temper and not become a monster.

After tasting Tora's blood, Ryan, Dalton, Jesse and Tora depart in an SUV stolen by Jesse. On the ride, Ryan struggles to maintain his humanity, a struggle that grows harder and harder as the oni's blood drives away rational thought and works to replace it with bloodlust. As they drive, after checking that they need a gathering with a lot of people, Dalton suggests the group attacking the Cheshire Theater which Jesse agrees with. Tora arms them all with knives, but reminds them that they must make at least one kill with their claws or fangs. After receiving the knife, Ryan's bloodlust just grows and he struggles harder to maintain control of himself and not become a monster.

By the time the group arrives at the theater, Ryan is losing his fight against his oni side. While the others go to cover the doors and balcony to ensure no one gets out during the slaughter, Ryan is hesitant to take part so Tora commands Ryan by his blood to cover the fire exit and allow no one to leave. The phrase referring to Tora's blood and the memory of it on his lips galvanizes Ryan like it triggers a post-hypnotic suggestion and Ryan does as Tora ordered. Finally, Jesse starts the slaughter by jumping on stage and murdering everyone there while Dalton kills people on the balcony and throws their bodies to the main floor and Tora attacks people with his cane and a meat cleaver. At first, Ryan stands in shock, barely holding back his bloodlust, until Jesse starts slaughtering the crowd of theater goers and people rush for the fire exit to escape. As the crowd rushes towards Ryan, he is ordered by Tora through their blood link to stand his ground. Ryan braces himself with his human side urging him to run but his oni side urging him to fight and kill. As a burly man charges Ryan to get him out of the way so they can escape, Ryan reflexively raises his knife which the man, impales himself on, killing him. After pushing the man's corpse to the ground, Ryan is attacked by the man's wife and grabs her by the throat in self-defense to stop her attack on him. Before Ryan can stop himself, he squeezes, causing his claws to slice through the woman's throat, killing her and splashing Ryan's face with her blood as his claws rupture an artery. Having killed someone with his claws, Ryan's horns push through his scalp and his third eye starts to form in the center of his forehead. Ryan's human side then succumbs to despair and loses all control with his oni side taking over completely.

With Ryan's oni side in full control, he begins eagerly taking part in the slaughter of the theater goers and Ryan starts killing anyone who approaches him. After over a hundred people are dead or dying from Tora, Ryan, Jesse and Dalton's attacks, the first contingent of police officers arrive in an attempt to stop them. However, the police are unable to harm Tora, even at point-blank range and Ryan witnesses Jesse get hit in the chest over the heart and suffer no real harm due to his invulnerability. Ryan himself is hit in the upper arm, but suffers only a red welt with the bullet not even penetrating his skin and other bullets that hit him hurting no more than a wasp sting. As the cops battle the oni with no luck and are slaughtered while suffering various misfortunes that exacerbate their troubles, Ryan realizes that the oni is responsible. Ryan's human side, voiceless and dwindling to irrelevance at this point, knows that everyone in the theater is doomed and no one will survive the massacre.

Eventually, more police officers arrive led by Sergeant James McClary and carrying holly which shields them from Tora's influence over human behavior. These new cops are also accompanied by hunters Bobby Singer, Roy Dempsey and [{Sam Winchester|Sam]] and Dean Winchester. When a group of cops break in through the fire exit, Ryan attacks them with his knife, yelling "no" every time he lashes out at someone. While the cops battle Jesse, McClary and Bobby battle Tora and Dean and Roy face off with Dalton, Sam leads a couple of cops into battle against Ryan. However, Sam's group proves no match for Ryan and his invulnerability and inhuman strength with any bullets that hit Ryan only eliciting a grunt, flinch or occasional stumble. With the exception of Winemiller, all of the police officers that broke through the fire exit are taken down by physical battery and knife attacks from Ryan as well as occasional friendly fire while the other cops fare no better against Jesse and Tora. Sam shoots Ryan in the throat, but causes him no harm and Ryan advances on Winemiller, slashing his knife back and forth. As the outcome of the battle looks bleak, Dean kills Dalton with a shot to his third eye and yells at everyone to target Ryan, Jesse and Tora's third eyes. While Sam does so, he finds that Ryan's third eye hasn't yet opened and is unable to kill him. However, Dalton's death and the threat to Ryan and Jesse cause Tora to order his sons to retreat. As the cops and hunters attempt to target Jesse and Tora, Tora injures Bobby and McClary and kills Winemiller, allowing Tora, Ryan and Jesse to escape outside to Jesse's stolen SUV and flee back to Hawthorne's.

By the time the three return to Hawthorne's, Ryan human side starts to resurface without the bloodlust of battle to keep his oni side in full control. Ryan angrily confronts Tora for what the oni had made him do, but Tora dismisses it as his true nature and tells Ryan that by dawn, his transformation will be complete and he will cast aside human weakness and concerns. Tora tells Ryan that they will now finish the demon gate ritual so that Kim will become oni and share their strength when Sumiko, who has been following Ryan, is captured by Jesse. Tora announces his intention to use Sumiko's heart in the demon gate ritual, causing Ryan to turn to Sumiko. At first, Ryan fails to recognize Sumiko, but once he does, Ryan's human side regains complete control and he tells Tora to let her go as she has nothing to do with this. Tora simply responds that Sumiko forfeited her life when she entered his lair and Ryan is of his blood and will follow his commands. When Jesse breaks Sumiko's arm while trying to tie her to the chair, an enraged Ryan roars and tries to attack his half-brother. Though Sumiko tries to warn Ryan, he fails to see Jesse draw his knife from his belt. Jesse stabs his knife into Ryan's third eye, twists it and then yanks the knife out, mortally wounding Ryan who falls to the floor and curls up into the fetal position. As blood and white fluid leak from Ryan's wound, Sumiko takes his head into her lap and Ryan apologizes to her, telling Sumiko that he's done terrible things. Sumiko attempts to comfort Ryan, telling him that what happened to him wasn't his fault. Ryan dies in Sumiko's arms while an enraged Tora confronts Jesse for murdering Ryan, with an unrepentant Jesse telling Tora that Ryan was weak and didn't deserve to live. Sumiko tries to defend Ryan as stronger than both of them, but Tora threatens to rip out her tongue if she talks again.

After killing Jesse and Tora and saving Sumiko, the Winchesters and Bobby inform Sergeant McClary of the events and leave him to deal with the bodies of Ryan, Kim Jacobs, Jesse and Tora. Sumiko is grief-stricken by Ryan's death and deals in part with it by removing all of her posts regarding the oni's swath of destruction from her blog.

Physical Appearance
At the time of his death, Ryan was described as being six foot five with a wide build and naturally red hair that he had dyed cobalt blue to stand out. After his transformation into a full oni was begun, Ryan grew claws, horns and a third eye and his natural hair color started returning.

Personality and Traits
Unlike his half-brothers, Ryan was not a violent individual as a human and was in fact clumsy rather than graceful or athletic. During the year approaching his transition into a full oni, Ryan started to feel trapped and helpless due to the fact that his grades were dropping, his girlfriend was going to college when he would likely get a menial job and both his father and girlfriend were distant from him.

A defining trait of Ryan's personality was his love for his girlfriend Sumiko Jones, a love that allowed him to hold onto his humanity as he transformed more and more. However, as Sumiko became more and more absorbed with her blog, Ryan grew more and more frustrated with her as she focused more on her blog work than him. Even after transforming mostly into an oni, Ryan's love for Sumiko remained so strong that it was able to pull his human personality back to the forefront after his oni half had consumed it nearly entirely.

After his transformation into an oni began, Ryan became more and more violent, something that scared him greatly. After meeting his oni father Tora, Ryan accepted some of his blood in order to gain the power he felt he needed to kill Tora, but in doing so, Ryan's oni half gained more control over him. After accidentally killing a woman, Ryan's oni half gained full control and began slaughtering people with his father and brothers while his human half fell into despair and irrelevance. Despite taking full part in the slaughter, Ryan's oni half retained enough humanity to yell "no!" every time he killed someone but didn't stop. After the slaughter and Tora no longer commanding Ryan so closely, some of his humanity started to shine through in his oni half who was enraged at what Tora had made him do.

After the arrival of Sumiko Jones, Ryan's human side was able to regain control briefly in a failed attempt to protect his girlfriend. At the end of his life, Ryan was horrified by the acts he had committed while his oni side was in control of him.

Powers and Abilities
After his transformation into an oni began, Ryan gained a few powerful oni abilities:
 * Talon-like claws - As his transformation into an oni continued, Ryan's fingernails turned into deadly talon-like claws easily capable of ripping a person's throat open and disemboweling them.
 * Super Strength - After his transformation into an oni began and especially after he drank Tora's blood, Ryan gained an inhuman level of strength. His strength was such that when he accidentally killed a burly man, he barely felt the man's weight against him and then when holding off the man's wife, accidentally dug his claws into her neck just by gripping it.
 * Invulnerability -Due to ingesting Tora's blood, Ryan gained a lesser degree of the oni's invulnerability. As a result, bullets could only cause Ryan some slight pain but not seriously harm him. Ryan was hit multiple times by bullets, including a direct shot to his throat without even being slowed down. After gaining this ability, Ryan's only weakness was his third eye.

Weaknesses

 * Mortality - Before his transformation began, Ryan was mortal and vulnerable to all methods of injury.
 * Third Eye - After his transformation into an oni began, Ryan's third eye was his only weakness.

Appearances

 * Supernatural: Rite of Passage