Nanaho Kazuko | Kumogakure No Sato | Jounin Hanchou (WIP)

[Nanaho Kazuko]

NANAHO KAZUKO

KAMINARI NO JIGOKU • HELLISH THUNDER

days of warning nights bring mourning

AGE: twenty-seven
BIRTHDATE: july 17th
GENDER: female
SEXUALITY: her wanton sexual urges are impeded by her innate dislike of people.
VILLAGE: Kumogakure No Sato
RANK: Jounin
POSITION: Jounin Hanchou
INNATE AFFINITY: raiton
CHAKRA NATURES: raiton -- suiton -- fuuton

my prayers wordless heaven is burning down

HEIGHT: 5ft 6 inches
WEIGHT: 140 lbs
APPEARANCE:

She is not a precious flower. Bodies have been crushed between her hands, lives forever changed by her bone breaking ways. Her palms show the extent of her physical prowess, scarred by fire and torn by knives, a criss cross of hardened skin that paints a grim portrait of her victims. Forgotten are the days when her knuckles were not red raw, abrasions forever scabbing over in the days between fisticuffs. Her blows so heavy her own body struggles to maintain its integrity, though she has youth on her side still, to hasten the healing of her wounds. Vanity is not something she concerns herself with, Kazuko is a warrior, first and foremost. 

Her features have a sharpness that perfectly reflects the cut-throat nature of this particular beast, a cruel beauty if one can find any beauty at all. Eyes narrow and devoid of the wide innocent warmth displayed by other women her age. Brutal determination swims beneath her yellow ochre orbs, eyes that have seen too many horrors to count, high arched eyebrows prone to rising in derision. Two scars rudely disjoint the linear nature of her left eyebrow, appearing as though she has delicately shaved away at the hair when the true origin is a tale of frenzied kunai and lazy reactions.

Status is more than a fancy jacket, this Hanchou wears only her prowess as proof of her standing within the hierarchy of Kumogakure no Sato. Simple faded blue bands of tattoo ink ring her arms with no explanation given as to why. Her hair sits in a mess of dark brown spikes, untamed and left entirely to its own devices. At the very least she keeps it out of her eyes in a style befitting her lightning affinity. 

She stands tall with seemingly fragile limbs. There is power in her lean form, the definition of her muscles speak of a body finely tuned towards hand to hand combat. Lithe and limber, Kazuko could have been an acrobat or a gymnast had it not been for her penchant for butting heads. Grace is not something anyone has ever accused her of, but even Kazuko is capable of such fluidity. One might call this a savage grace, a predatory swing to her gait, a stride that speaks of purpose and an awareness that suggests she is always waiting for a reason to snap. A viper laying in wait, Kazuko encompasses all these things.

PERSONALITY:

--- IT'S THE TIME OF THE SEASON, WHEN HATE RUNS HIGH
and this time, give it to you easy

Kazuko is just a sum of her influence. The minefield of life has had direct control over how she has come to colour her world view and that in turn dictates how she carries herself. She is capable of many things; she just chooses to forgo many of them. Kazuko has a certain intelligence that only other predators might understand. She is a master at reading situations and those within them and can expertly orchestrate a solution that benefits her the most.

Selfish would be a correct estimation of her persona, she possess a certain glibness and superficial charm that can catch many off guard. It’s a skill learned through her understanding of people, which can be likened more to how a hunter is able to predict its prey. She knows what you want to hear and she knows how best to word it to hasten a quick solution. Manipulative and conning, she understands the rights of others, her position as Jouin Hanchou requires her to read up on many legal do’s and do not’s, the only way she can uphold the law of the lawmakers.

Understanding is not her issue. Kazuko chooses not to recognise the rights of others where it would benefit her not to, seeing her own self-serving behaviours are entirely permissible. Abuse of power is a day in the life of this individual. She appears charming, to those above her station, yet she is covertly hostile and domineering, seeing others merely as instruments to be used. Ego is partly responsible for this haphazard view on right and wrong but the true culprit is her lack of concern for consequences. A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at her core. It keeps her warm on cold nights, it guides her heavy strikes in battle and it lingers in her moments of downtime, like a dark cloud hovering above her.

She does not see others as people, only targets or opportunities. In truth, she doesn’t really have any friends, though others might think of her fondly, Kazuko merely sees these people as accomplices or acquaintances she can use to her own ends. To her, the ends always justify the means; this allows her to be capable of a vast scope of cruelty.

She is unashamedly callous, lacking entirely in empathy for the distress of others. This is not unusual between combatants, but while Kazuko displays contempt for the feelings of her victims, she also carries this same lack of empathy over into society with her. Disinterested in pandering to the emotions of others, Kazuko comes across as a cold, uncaring individual because that’s exactly what she is. She only ever displays shallow emotions, if she bothers to display them at all. These are more so than not, feigned or learned behaviours rather than a result of genuine experience and ultimately serve an ulterior motive.

She employs a certain, unorthodox means of controlling her ranks of Jounin, employing both rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval to produce an addictive cycle in which they try to please her and dread disappointing her. It would be fair to say that she openly manhandles the emotions of others, though she is indifferent to the devastation this might cause. Kazuko rarely blames herself, but chooses to pin it on others, even for acts she has obviously committed. She does not expect her Jounin to question her; doing so would lead to a rage aspect of her control cycle and put them out of favour with her.

--- WITH PLEASURED HANDS

and torture everyone, that is my plan

If you got this far, it will come as no surprise to know that Kazuko is a vengeful sort and will maintain a grudge until her dying breath, even for seemingly trivial things. Kazuko never forgets a slight, whether it be real or imagined. She holds grudges over people’s heads and draws on the past actions of people to predict what they are going to do next. This makes her seem somewhat suspicious of others, as though she is merely waiting on them to trip up just so she can lord it over them. She is a bluntly literal person, she doesn’t boil things down into archetypes or symbols, subtlety is not something she is known for and she can become irritated by those intent on veiled ways and scheming. Though she is not a simpleton (far from it), she prefers a direct approach to conflict.

She fancies herself as a clever strategist, though she is more of a problem solver; at her best when thinking on her feet. This can account for her quick wittedness and her ability to come up with several ideas to solve immediate problems in the blink of an eye, demonstrating her path to idea formation - one idea branching another and so on and so forth. Her abundance of solutions would be a problem if she were indecisive, but Kazuko is not one to ponder over her actions for hours and is more likely to act on impulse.

Her sort of strategy is short sighted and generally only benefits her. While she is certainly cunning, she comes up with her best ideas in the action and when an opportunity to use them presents itself rather than sitting around a war room thinking up the best, most convoluted ways to get one over on the enemy.

Oftentimes she acts first and rationalises things later, unsurprisingly placing herself in the right at all times, coming up with loose explanations as to why she was in the right when the morality of her actions is muddy. She is spiteful and vindictive, though she doesn’t show it as obviously as one might think, making it difficult for others to gauge her reactions. Kazuko harbours hatred within her and is constantly rationalising this disdain for others, even when it appears unwarranted. This is the same function she uses to fabricate lies, and also the function that helps her to say exactly what she means to say, she is rarely vague. Her words cut as readily as she does.

--- LET ME TAKE YOU BY THE HAND

to promised land

Kazuko is an uncompromising force; she bends to no one’s will but her own. Her characteristics are similar to those of a sociopath, but she would argue that she shares this with most shinobi, at least in some aspects.

She has a singular redeeming quality and that is her ability to understand that she herself is stunted, emotionally. This leads her to genuinely try to remove herself from her habitual nature when in the company of those that might take influence from the lead she sets. Though there are very few people she deems worthy of such effort, Jigoku and Tetsuo (Shirley’s children) are treated to a side of her that few others have ever seen.

She plays on her ability to portray emotions in order to appear genuine to these children, while it began as pretence such behaviour has become natural when she is in their company and she needs not exert any effort to maintain it. Obviously, Kazuko does feel some rudimentary human connection, though only with those she considers family.

Shirley (Kajou Shinji) falls beneath this restrictive and very limited branch of her behaviour. Having grown up with him, she views him as a brother of sorts. Their relationship began on rocky terms, though it would not be wrong for her to assume the bond between siblings has a similar branch of development. Just as siblings learn to love one another, Kazuko has learned to love Shirley enough to avoid killing him.

Their work together as genin solidified the friendship when Kazuko found that she could actually depend on another. Trust is not something she gives out freely, but if she must trust anyone with her life, it would be Shirley. Her loyalty, as impossible as it is to gain, is a very rare commodity and when achieved, is not something one would ever trade in. There is no end to the evils Kazuko might commit to protect Shirley and, by extension, his two brats.

This loyalty is blinding and immovable. She cannot be swayed by promises or appealing deals to betray her only true friend, and may even kill you on the spot for the mere suggestion that she might back stab him. Kazuko can be reckless with her own safety, unafraid as she is of incurring injury. She does not display this same flippancy when the security of Jigoku or Tetsuo is concerned, she spares Shirley himself no measure of her protection however, and confident he can take care of himself.

                                        ---

DESPONDENT AND CONDESCENDING, THE KING OF NONSENSE

LIKES:

❥ violence (she doesn't care what you say, it solves everything.)
❥    sass (kazuko loves a bit of back chat, any excuse to let her flex her petty inner child.)            
❥ competition (so long as it doesn't show her up too much. she enjoys a rather peculiar rivalry with the ANBU Leader, Kajou Shinji.)
❥  Jiko and Tetsuo (Shinji's kids, all other kids can kindly get the fuck out her face.)
❥ being right (and making sure everyone knows it.)

DISLIKES:

✖ konoha (they think they're so great and there was the small matter of their assault on Kumogakure No Sato claiming the lives of her parents and throwing her into the lacklustre life of an orphan.)
✖ suna (all that damned sand makes suna even less appealing than it already is.)
✖ politics (beneath the jewel encrusted veneer (intro to sarcasm) kazuko is actually a fairly blunt individual, preferring to stick a fork in your eye over debating this years deficit.)
✖ people (with a few select exceptions.)
✖ 

HISTORY:

--- I WILL BATTLE FOR THE SUN
origin

She is too small to make a difference, too small to strike back at the devils infiltrating her land. Her mind is preoccupied with the immediate dangers to consider the politics behind the warring nations; she doesn’t understand why this is happening. How could she? She can see a similar confusion in her father’s eyes, even he does not understand the need for such bloodshed, but it is not his place to question the leadership of the Raikage. It is not his place to pick up a blade and run at his aggressors, but he does so anyway. Her mother left this morning, adorned in her ninja uniform, a noticeable tremor in her hands and a delicate, tentative notion that she might return to her family this evening. That she might find her way back to Kazuko in time enough to tuck her in to sleep. Whatever advantage the mountains gave them is lost the moment a Konoha Jounin steps foot upon their land, breaching the gates of the farmstead and bringing with them the fire their land is named after.

It is the people who suffer most, Kumogakure nin fall by the dozen but this is an eventuality they accepted upon joining the ranks of the villages military. The people, they didn’t sign up for this. Simple men and women cut down with a criminal ease, incapable of evading the reach of thrown kunai or spinning shuriken. The streets litter with the bodies of civilians, culled like vermin, bodies impaled and riddled with the debris that comes with a clash of ninja. Stores and homes go up in flames, the night is cast in an orange glow but Kazuko cannot feel the cold mountain air on her face.

She is too small. Small enough to avoid being crushed beneath the shattered support structures of her family home, this mess of wood and cement used to be her bedroom, but now it serves a decidedly more insidious purpose. It’s her casket, she can hear the broken down house screeching and crying out every time she moves even an inch, threatening to close the miniscule opening she has found herself trapped within. Her father had left the house mere moments before the entire thing came crashing down, farmers sickle clasped within his grasp, its blunt edge shining in the candlelight. She is too young to consider the situation or understand that he left in time to meet the explosion head on, thinking he could chase away those ninja trespassing upon his land, trying his best to appear invincible in the eyes of his daughter.

She is too young to understand the pressures of adulthood, but even she can tell that she will never see him again.

Moonlight slips through the cracks of her debris casket, bringing with it the scent of burning. She can see stars through the gaps but as small as she is, she cannot wriggle free of the crowd of wreckage, her body cannot twist and contort in such a way, her shoulders are too wide to fit through. Soon the calamity outside dies down as the enemy nin seem to move on, to leave Kumogakure in the mess they created, confident enough that the message has been received. Konoha and Suna came to flex their might, to stamp out ideas that failed to align with their own. She doesn’t care what guided them to tear the place apart; her juvenile mind is incapable of finding any rhyme or reason in it.

As the night gives way to morning, Kazuko once again hears voices outside of her rock prison; though this time they come in peace. Rescuers searching for survivors coordinate themselves enough to pry her from the rubble. Her eyes take a while to adjust to the light and as she scans the surrounding area, she vaguely registers a reddish pulp huddled between rubble and later realises it was her father. She is taken to one of the surviving government buildings and becomes lost within a sea of vagrant children, some leave, claimed by the parents they were separated from in the chaos. Kazuko remains, waiting patiently for her mother to appear in the doorway, the moment never comes and she is herded off with the other orphans to hash out the remains of her childhood.

--- AND I WON'T STOP UNTIL I'M DONE
pre-academy years 

The world seems tailored to her, she is still small but it doesn’t seem as such when everyone else around her is in the same position. Orphanages are where the forgotten children go to further succeed in being neglected. They provide her with few things of worth, tattered clothes she will quickly outgrow and a broken knowledge of simple things like reading and writing, she recognises her own name and that’s the main thing. There will still be time for that; a more immediate situation arises in the form of a fellow orphan. The idle chit chat of her peers informs her of his name, Kajou Shinji but whenever she finds herself interacting with him, she merely calls him Shirley. He is like her, his parents fell victim to the invading forces of Konoha and Suna. He is not like her, he cries at nights, trying to muffle the sounds of heartache but failing miserably. It keeps her up at night and soon enough, she finds she hates the boy.

It crosses her mind that perhaps his blubbering is an irritant to others and she watches as a number of children decide to target him. The orphanage is a melting pot of lost youth, children hardened by the war act more like bitter young adults, full of venom for the world around them. Kazuko is no different but she hates interacting with her peers enough to keep her bitterness from impacting on anyone else. She doesn’t see any need in dragging anyone else into her darkly cynical world view; they’re already there, toiling around on their very own slice of isolation and social disillusion. Others do not share her consideration and prefer to take out their grievances on one another, naturally selecting the scrawniest of children, of which Shirley is a prime candidate. She too falls into such a category but her willingness to treat her peers to an intro to physical abuse keeps the so called wolves from her door. Before long, Kazuko is the wolf to stray clear of.

It started with defending her dinner rations by choosing to smash the slop filled plate against the face of her aggressor rather than let them simply take her food.

If she can’t eat it, no one can.

The boy disappears from the orphanage for a few weeks, returning when the facial wounds have healed and scabbed over, scars that will follow him into adulthood, horrible marks that show he has tangoed with one far more vicious than he. Kazuko suffers too beneath the belt of her appointed guardians, several lashes to the back of her legs meant to dissuade her from acting out in such a manner ever again.

True menace cannot be curbed; she comes to know the snakelike bite of the belt more than she knows anything else, each time she is treated to a dose of discipline, she turns her pain into someone else’s. Literally lashing out the moment she is released from the scrutiny of her elders, punching, kicking, biting and head butting her way into a solid relationship with authority figures. Like a dog, she grows insensitive to the rebuttal of her carers faster than they would care to admit. She meets the belt with a smile, offering up her palm with a quickness that suggests she has better things to do. There isn’t a day when her hands aren’t beaten red, or her legs painted with painful lashes or her knuckles wrapped by the hard edge of a ruler.

Her elders are horribly unimaginative so Kazuko demonstrates several other choice ways to bully others, hand picking her targets from the orphans she has grown up with. Understandably, they are unwilling to participate in her brutal games, but Kazuko does not need consent. She does what she wants with the rag dolls provided. Bones are broken, blood and tears are shed and at the end of it Kazuko feels no better for it, not until she is taken into a room and treated to a dose of her own medicine. It proves she has something to offer this world, teaching others how best to break another down. They break the fingers in one hand, slamming her hand between a desk and a drawer thrown shut. 

Poor medical treatment is all the thanks she gets for teaching them her unsavoury ways, the bone fails to heal properly and she loses all sensation in three of five, though it does nothing to hinder their mobility. In her weeks of recovery, a certain ease returns to the orphanage, Kazuko merely utilises her reputation to get the things others would seek to keep from her. Hard staring can only go so far before one must raise a finger.

It's Shirley who fails to read the signals she has perfected, though she is quite certain the folly lies more in his disinterest in bending to her will. There is always one and when she attempts to correct him, he lashes out in his own way, knocking her down. At first, Kazuko can see the funny side, finding the hasty appearance of the carers so out of place it's too difficult not to fall into hysterics. Usually they appear after the damage has been done, at least, in her experience. This time they are fast to the party, quick to keep Kazuko from further harm at the hands of this one orphan pushed too far. 

More likely, they have been waiting for a moment such as this. Kazuko's inactivity has given them time to concoct a punishment befitting her crimes all they needed was a reason to implement it. Despite Shirley's involvement, he is overlooked and goes unpunished. Kazuko is gathered up by the vultures lying in wait and carted off to a wardrobe of a room. Dank and dingy, looking to be especially built just for her. The only light source comes from the open door, and she finds light fast fleeting the moment it closes behind her. She is thrown into darkness. The tightness of the space and the absence of light reminds her of her time spent trapped within her collapsed home.

Time becomes an abstract thing as she is left in pitch black with nothing but her thoughts to entertain her. She can think only of her previous entrapment and the panic leads her to scratch at the walls with ferocity enough to tear away her finger nails. Hours are spent kicking at the door until she exhausts herself and when a key finally clicks within the lock, Kazuko is found in a catatonic state. Her fingers are bleeding stubs; she doesn't even twitch when the nurse applies an alcohol to clean the wounds of bacteria. Her thoughts are focussed instead on the red pulp the invading Ninja's made of her father. She wants nothing more than to learn how to do such a thing, one day she hopes to have power enough to batter another into a fine, mushy paste.

She passes Shirley in the hallway and throws him out of a window. It's not a long fall, but he doesn't escape injury. It becomes clear that Kazuko is not concerned with hiding her intentions, she is not afraid of being caught. She goes to solitary without a hitch and the darkness of that crawlspace feeds the darkness within her.

Just as love nurtures, cruelty only teaches Kazuko to be cruel. It does nothing to teach her consideration, but everything to learn her in the ways of inconsideration. 

--- YOU ARE GETTING IN THE WAY 
academy years 

She’s not one for lectures but the criteria for acceptance into the Ninja Academy is something she should at least appear interested in. The instructing Chuunin relays the same old spiel he has long grown tired of in a tone that reflects his enthusiasm for it, or lack thereof. He mentions that a prospective student should have a love for their village and hope for nothing more than to help preserve peace and prosperity. She looks around at the sea of faces she has found herself adrift amidst, finding youthful naivety in abundance and catching sight of Shirley in the corner. It is sheer luck that she is a civilian of Kumogakure no Sato, she has no clan and cannot claim a long, illustrious family history connected to the Village. A shrug of the shoulders is all she can offer, quite certain she is incapable of love, at least when it comes to loving a village. Neither is she interested in the prosperity of her homeland. She can offer it peace though, the kind one beats into its people. Peace found through fear, she can guarantee a docile people, certain they would rather step off a steep ledge rather than risk any reprimand Kazuko might dish out.

She nods, yes, she can say with certainty that she is capable of preserving peace.

Next comes mention of great will, a mind that will not yield and a body capable of enduring hard work and training. At this, she merely chuckles, turning her hand over to inspect the freshly torn knuckles, the consequence of insolence at breakfast. She is confident in her ability to withstand punishment, mentally and physically. Her time in the orphanage has prepared her for whatever the Academy can throw at her. She fears she may even be disappointed by the training not being hard enough for her liking.

This is the one place her talents can go to good use, the one place in the Village where she can be as aggressive as she wants. It will be applauded rather than vilified, it will see her through difficult missions and impossible odds and she won’t have to answer to an old witch swinging around a leather belt. As she day dreams of one day returning to the orphanage only to choke the life out of the elder with that belt she seems so fond of, she glazes over the third idealistic stipulation of being healthy in both mind and body.

She wonders just how they hope to gauge such a thing, her body is in fine health, despite the superficial wear and tear of years of abuse. Her mind is another matter entirely; she doesn’t doubt that it is a mess of poorly treated grey matter, punched and smacked into a hobbling sap; a psyche that reflects the life to have nurtured it.

One out of three isn’t bad.

The others are easily feigned. Kazuko becomes adept at pretending to care, she watches the other girls in her class and mimics the moves they make, the giggles and the polite immaturity. When she is accepted into the Academy, she finds a familiar sort in Shirley. He’s the only one who knows her movements are practiced, the only one who can see through the infallible act she has concocted.

Of course, he thinks this gives him some form of leverage but as ever, Kazuko is quick to correct him. Her talent for pretence is so great that his comments are viewed merely as slander; he forgets that these are not orphans and this is not the orphanage. These are children with families and homes and loving mothers and fathers, some even have family pets. They return home to warmth and the appraisal of her parents, they are soft. She and he go back to the cold, misshapen mattress they have claimed as their own. They struggle to sleep through the stifled crying and unashamed snoring of the many peers they share their sleeping quarters with. They are a different breed to the Academy students, but when Kazuko is on point, it is difficult to tell she was ever a delinquent.

She will always be as such, at heart. The pretence gets her through a number of years; she learns whatever things they have to teach her. Finally filling in the gaps of her laughable knowledge of language, both in writing and reading and soon she doesn’t have to pause before each word to sound it out. Soon, she is writing essays of worth. She soaks it all up with the same readiness of a sponge drinking in water. This creates a most devastating creature, one both street smart and book smart. She hides her aptitude though, never intending to stand out. Cracks only ever appear in Taijutsu classes, when her true bestial nature peaks through the well-mannered veneer she has created and the room descends into a nervous silence after she has knocked out her partner for the seventh time and the remainders of his baby teeth are on the floor.

The Orphanage has taught her that the nail to stand up is the one to get hammered; she coasts by on average marks and maintains average acquaintances to appear normal.

Shirley is not one of these. She avoids him like a plague, preferring to pretend he doesn’t exist at all.

Such a thing becomes difficult to maintain, however, upon their graduation. She reads the room of graduates and displays the same glee they do when she is finally gifted with her very own head band. Inside, she merely feels as though she is one step closer. This is one box ticked on her to do list, one measly step closer to becoming the sort of ninja capable of battering another into a red mist.

--- I HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO SAY
genin years

They may as well have had her doing mundane chores, for all the action she saw as a Genin, one would think she was some sort of maid. Their Sensei was not an ambitious man, or he appeared to be content to exist merely as an unremarkable teacher for the rest of his life. She recognised his ambivalence as something she herself made use of in her day to day life, she could smell the deceit in his lazy ways. He was trying to appear as unaspiring as humanly possible, he existed beneath the radar, never drawing attention to himself. She could understand that, a little too much perhaps. Kazuko knew her own motives were shady, she could only imagine as to why their Sensei hoped to go on unheard of, assuming that he too was like her and had something unsavoury to hide. Once she was a Jounin she need pretend no longer, she could drop the socially acceptable façade she had spent years cultivating, it would be too late for anyone to try and stop her. They would realise she was a monster the moment they could no longer keep her under their thumb.

Genin answered to their Sensei, Chuunin answered to Jounin and they answered to the Jounin Hanchou, who only ever took orders directly from the Raikage. She need only suffer through a decade of false compliance before she could become the one giving the orders and making the demands.

Ambition made it easier to suffer through the importance of team work, something she never truly understood. In the end, she would be solely responsible for her own well-being and, if she was not up to the task, she would die alone. Having cannon fodder would not change that, she looked to Shirley, finding him sitting on the store’s counter, casually reading some flower arranger’s digest. A cheerleader to bolster morale would not keep death from her door, her gaze shifted to Sassy (who was obviously confused as she tried to assure Kazuko that her real name was Sayo). Whoever she was, Sassy could be counted on as the weakest link in this already delicate daisy chain, she was even asleep on the floor, curled up like a cat.

Kazuko dutifully leaned by the door, habitually checking the street every now and then when something out of place caught her eye. The darkness made it difficult to tell cats and flying parchment apart from undesirables seeking to turn the store over. Kumogakure was not the safest place, despite the heavy military presence. The war had changed everything for the worse; Kazuko and Shirley were prime examples of what happened when nations clashed unnecessarily. Of course, Konoha might brag about how Kumogakure had been in the wrong first, apparently finding it in bad form to capture and imprison foreign shinobi whenever they crossed into their land. Konoha liked to whine about a lot of things and unfortunately for the Cloud Village, they had the ear of Sunagakure who would bend over backwards to appease the Land of Fire for reasons she was not sure of. As far as she was concerned, they were welcome to one another and the day would come when they were served up their comeuppance, perhaps specially delivered by Kazuko herself, straight up their arrogant, fat asses-

Movement outside caught her eye and her ears strained to listen beyond the sound of their Sensei snoring away behind the counter Shirley was stationed upon.

Mission parameters were fairly simple. The owner of the store had been threatened several times by a local gang and had paid good money to have the privilege of their protection. Though she wondered just how little one had to pay to land themselves with a Genin team of shinobi. Either he didn’t think too highly of this gang or he thought too highly of their capabilities, or maybe he was the tight fisted sort. The makeshift repair job of his smashed window leaned towards such an explanation, the cardboard flapped lightly in the breeze, sodden through and soggy from the rainfall of the evening before. The scent of old rain still lingered in the mountain air, but even that could do nothing to cover the unmistakable aroma of burning linen.

“Wake up!”

An unwelcome intrusion bust through the only remaining glass window pane on the store front, a bottle of sake half full, neck choked by the linen that had been stuffed into it, tip flaming. The bottle clattered against the cracked, ceramic floor tiles, spilling fire into the centre of the store. Sassy jolted awake and Shirley was already up on his feet, flower magazine stuffed unceremoniously into his back pocket for future use. The hell was he up to?

Further delay was given as they awaited the orders of their esteemed leader, he only offered them a lazy dismissive wave from behind the counter, turning on his side to continue catching his forty winks, whether there was a fire brewing or not.

Kazuko locked eyes with Shirley momentarily and they shared a knowing nod, Sassy wiped the sleep from her eyes, skipping around the fire in a panic. A cold wind blew in through the window as Kazuko tore the damp cardboard away and leaped out into the night, tossing the sodden parchment at Sassy, willing her to know what to do with it. Kazuko didn’t put out fires, she made them. She chased down the vandals alongside Shirley, beating them into submission and dragging them back to answer for their crimes. The kicker being that the boy had been a familiar face back at the Orphanage, he remembered Kazuko, she had given him those distinctive scars and when he had seen her hot on his tail, he had wanted nothing more than for the earth to open up beneath him and swallow him whole.

She never knew what happened to him, or what punishment the Jounin decided to dish out to him. He served merely as a reminder to how far she had come and how much farther she had to go, if she hadn’t of had that fire that made her tick, she may have been as destitute as he was. Likely, she would have fallen in with a bad crowd and become a delinquent gang member.

Of course, becoming a ninja was not so much different as becoming a gang member. The only true difference being that her gang ran the Village, her gang was the top gang and the members were all elite soldiers.

Delinquency would never leave her.

--- I WILL BRUSH OFF ALL THE DIRT
chuunin exams 

It would all be for nothing if she allowed this dead weight to drag her down. She would lose everything she had worked so hard for; she would be doomed to be a Genin forever. No, Kazuko would not go down like this. She had warned Shirley to focus but his childish infatuation with Sassy could not be penetrated by her words of warning. He had run into things head first, never thinking of his own safety, never thinking that it might be a trap. Clearly, she was bait. A rival team had caught her attempting to steal their scrolls and now they were using her to draw out the rest of her teammates. Her cries cut through the forest like no other sound she had heard before, like an animal in distress, a high pitched noise she had heard only babies make.

They could not advance to one on one combat until they had navigated their way through this portion of the test; the overseers clearly wanted nothing more than to hinder her by placing such an importance on teamwork. Shirley was not weak, but Sassy made him soft. His usually sharp senses were dulled when he was around her, his biggest flaw had been to ever fall for the doe eyed dolt. So here she was, having to pick up the heavy slack the two star crossed lovers left for her. The delicate little relationship the pair had built was another thing Kazuko did not entirely understand, it was not that she lacked the capacity to fathom love, but merely her unwillingness to give a flying fuck.

Usually it only made Shirley better as he endeavoured to show off whenever Sassy was about and, as they were a unit, there was rarely a time when the girl was absent. It drove Kazuko nuts, she spent most of her time rolling her eyes or holding down vomit that threatened to come with a fresh round of dry heaving. Love was such an ugly thing to watch.

So too was it a dangerous fault to have.

She found Shirley crawling on all fours, a coat of needles covering his back generously, hands pinned to the earth by two kunai. Sassy was just out of reach of him, crying and in a similar state. The enemy shinobi had used Sassy to lure out Shirley, and now, they had used him to lure out Kazuko. She watched the pair from the treeline, finding the openness of the enclosure all too suspicious for her liking. No doubt the pair entrapped in a barrier method formation, likely to explode the second Kazuko stepped beyond the safety zone.

Both brutal and efficient, something Kazuko could appreciate.

If she were so inclined (and she really was), she could take care of her two pesky colleagues by feigning ignorance of an obvious trap. One intentionally wrong step would be all it would take to kill both Shirley and Sassy. No more dead weight to keep her back. She might feel bad, momentarily, for losing Shirley. He had become an asset, one capable of reading from the same page as her. They knew how one another moved, he knew how she thought and together, they were an unstoppable force…until it came to Sassy. Sassy confused matters, she broke up the symbiotic cohesion of the dynamic duo with her clumsy ways and her lack of intuition.

Difficult choices were all part in parcel with becoming the best shinobi she could possibly be. Sassy was an obstacle to overcome, but in order to lose her, she would have to lose Shirley too.

With a huff, Kazuko resigned herself to heroics, seeking out the hidden explosive tags and finding three of the four guarded by enemy shinobi. She proved to be more brutal and efficient than any of them, combining her water clones with her mist servant genjutsu, she bombarded each of them with illusions enough to allow one of her clones to get close enough to apprehend them, and then she shot them full of lightning chakra with her wave of inspiration, destroying her own clones in the process. It didn’t matter; they were just water after all.

Not one of the defeated shinobi fought her face to face, never managing to see her clones as being clones until it was all too late. She left them in the dust, twitching from the residual electricity flooding their nervous system, incapable of speech, let alone movement. Kazuko dropped down from the canopy of trees, tearing the tags down and breaking the formation.

After that, it was simply a matter of dragging her two teammates the rest of the way, again using clones to assist in such a matter.

She would not allow the folly of men to stand in the way of her progress, not even if that folly was love for another.

--- I WILL PRETEND IT DIDN'T HURT
chuunin years 

--- YOU ARE A CHEAP AND NASTY FAKE
jounin years 

--- I AM THE BONES YOU COULDN'T BREAK
present 

i walk stricken pitch black vision

SPECIAL ABILITIES:

Taijutsu [Jounin Level] - Kihiken - Evasion Fist
Ninjutsu Aptitude [Jounin Level]
Genjutsu Aptitude [Jounin Level]
Chakra Reserves [Jounin Level]
Chakra Control [Chuunin Level]
--

Iryou Ninjutsu Aptitude  [Jounin Level]
Superior Chakra Reserves
Bukijutsu [Jounin Level]
Shurikenjutsu [Jounin Level]

INVENTORY:

if you possess the ability bukijutsu you can add one wielded weapon to your inventory; if you possess the ability shurikenjutsu you can double the starter kit and add one special throwing weapon to your inventory

• Kunai - 24
• Shuriken - 24
• Exploding Tags - 20
• Extendible steel baton

SUMMONING CONTRACT: if your character possesses one; if they do not, remove this section entirely

JUTSU:

S

A
Ranshinshou - Body Pathway Derangement
B
Hari Jizou - Needle Jizou
Raiton: Jibashi - Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder
Raiton: Hiraishin - Lightning Release: Lightning Rod
Raiton: Gian - Lightning Release: False Darkness
Raiton: Mukui - Lightning Release: Reckoning

C
Raiton: Shichuu Shibari - Lightning Release: Four Pillar Bind
Raiton: Kangekiha - Lightning Release: Wave of Inspiration
Suimen Hokō no Jutsu - Walking on Water Technique
Suiton: Mizurappa - Water Release: Wild Water Wave
Suiton: Hōmatsu Rappa - Water Release: Wild Bubble Wave
Mizu Bunshin no Jutsu - Water Clone Technique
Kekkai: Tengai Hōjin - Barrier: Canopy Method Formation
Fuuton: Shinkuugyoku - Wind Release: Vacuum Sphere
Fuuton: Repuushou - Wind Release: Gale Palm
D
Shunshin no Jutsu - Body Flicker Technique
Kasumi Juusha no Jutsu - Mist Servant Technique
Kekkai: Kasa - Barrier: Umbrella
Gantai no Jutsu | Bandage Technique

E
Henge no Jutsu - Transformation Technique
Bunshin no Jutsu - Clone Technique
Nawanuke no Jutsu - Escape Technique
Kawarimi no Jutsu - Substitution Technique
Kakuremino no Jutsu - Cloak of Invisibility Technique

strike the match engulf the earth in flame

CHATANGO NAME: abnkazu
OTHER CHARACTERS: n/a
SPECIAL ABILITY CLAIM: if any
FACE CLAIM:original art

coded by akemi