Sounds like you had a custom tailored Shiki Tohno for your mugen. Alot of Authors add there own little quirks and perks to the characters they make, specially with street fighter and melty blood characters. (two of the most popular mugen character archetypes) Kanji displaying 17 disection... Sounds interesting. Makes me wonder if its similar to Kohaku's arc drive kanji, or if it was custom.
Anyway, do you still have the character files? If so, who's the author? I'm just curious too see how it looks aesthetically really, and i can find just about anything mugen related if i have the author name.
As for the quote, its directly from Tsukihime. One of his more famous lines. Though IIRC, it was "things", not "a thing", but that's just me being an anal douche.