Name: Toyohisa Kouzai
Nickname: The Iron God
Age: 15
Gender: Male
Height: 5'2"
Weight: 96 lbs
Appearance: Standing 5 foot 2 inches, Kouzai is a bit on the smaller side, his mother saying he is a late bloomer. Dark black hair that seems wind kissed, he never brushes or combs it, thinking it gives him a bit of height. He wears a red haki style cloak, with his symbol, 6 gold coins in the back and bottom. Underneath he wears brown tunic and pants, traditional among Samurai. He his fierce eyes, that are a deep brown color, almost matching his tunic. He has two scars along his chest, however he wishes to have more, as the more scars one has, the more masterful at being a Samurai one becomes. He has an oval face, free of blemishes, even though his puberty was rough. His body is fit, however he is still young, so some might call him toned. His attire, its a traditional samurai outfit, with red being his favorite color, he has red shoulder pads, arm and hand guards, red boots. He uses a sash around his waist to hold his swords, preferring it to the traditional belts. When not "at war" or "training" Kouzai often ops for a simple red waist coat, and opens his tunic up to show his hairless chest. Still young, Kouzai can hairless, as he just has the fine hair, he hopes someday to live up to the Samurai way and become a "man" though he still has many tests to preform. Kouzai's voice is often gruff and a little harsh, having gone through puberty, his voice is a bit lower than some, though he still wishes to become taller, and more "enhanced" as he continues to grow.
Village: Sunagakure
Character Rank: D/Genin
Clan: N/A
Element: N/A
Personality: With low value in himself and inexplicably high standards set for himself, Kouzai is hunter and prey, darkness and light, a crow with broken wings that beats himself up for not being able to match a falcon in the skies. Living in imperfect balance between good and evil, choking in a sea of gray shades, Kouzai somehow finds enough strength to not only keep on walking but to laugh, to joke, to play and to train...though in many ways he does all of it in ways that are unconventional to the world around him. Whether through madness of deception Kouzai speaks in riddles, cryptic and inappropriately referring from anything ranging to blood, death, gore, mortality, ethics/morals to more light hearten subjects such as camaraderie, friendship, loyalty, duty, honor and courage.
Quite often he blends both, leading to much enjoyment at the expense of confusion of those around him. Lunacy or otherwise, his personality tends to lend him to be sort of a spymaster, utterly obsessed on the accoutrement of knowledge regardless of quality or worth, he also roams the village while making his home in a variety of cramped safe-houses that are renovated out of abandoned structures to suit his own purposes, often stashing various intelligence he has personally acquired which he keeps in a strange arrangement to make outsides who might uncover such to be hopelessly confused by the haphazard order they are kept in. While Kouzai can appear to be strange, creepy, unhinged, manipulative and a loner, Kouzai in fact deep down desires a close relationship with someone since the passing of his foster father. He dedicates the entirety of his craft, the labors of his training and his absolute loyalty to the village and anyone who is an ally. The darker side is that all whom are enemies, all who turn their backs on the village, wish it harm, flee due to fear, they all will not perish but continue to suffer under his many sinister blades.
"Pain, suffering, despair...it all enables happiness in this life, it gives meaning to the fleeting instances of joy that we experience. Happiness without pain is hallow, void, utter emptiness. Pain without joy? The fate of our enemies...Kekeke."
Highly intelligent, very hardened to pain and trauma, Toyohisa Kouzai is a near-pitiless agent who's sole ethics are maleable to meet the demands of his village and by definition, family. His quirks often alienate him from society but with some nurturing, he could make a fierce and terrifying agent of shadows that other villages might fear...or he will be reduced to a gibbering mad idiot dog of incomprehensible logic to be put down.
Character History: Born hidden away in borderlands between Lightning and Iron Country, born to a group of cutthroats, rogue shinobi and other similar individuals, refugees of the Toyohisa bloodline merged under the beckoning of a supernatural entity known only as ‘Kazuki the bloodless one’ and was depicted as a corpse-pale humanoid of almost abstract monstrous qualities who craved the blood of those slain in combat. Initially the Clan operated as honor and duty-bound mercenaries but within decades degenerated into a nomadic tribe that looted and killed for the appeasement of this supposed deity.
As Kouzai was born, the tribe had started to decline as they sought the blessings of Kazuki and imposed brutal ritual combat that appeased the monstrous god with bloody sacrifice and satisfaction that the strong lived on to spread terror and no doubt secure ripe sacrifice in his name. Kouzai was strange however, born sickly with illness and was very nearly left behind to cull the possibility of weakness. This illness however was hereditary, pigments in his skin extremely dark giving him a almost unearthly glow like Kazuki the Bloodless, sparing the child of death but not from the life he had laid out for him.
Son to the clan’s leader offered Kouzai little as he was forced to, as soon as he could walk, bear arms and endure physically abusive training, he was pushed and pushed and pushed even as he was purposefully separated from his siblings as all children in the clan were in order to keep them from bonding and hesitating when the time came to strike down the weak to have the strong survive. By the age of nine, Kouzai’s skin had been severely scarred and he was considered weak because he spent too much time on methodology and subtlety, not to mention his reaction to pain was irrational and inconsistent, causing others to suspect madness that would make him unfit to lead or even take rudimentary missions.
Nonetheless, Kouzai lived under the yoke of scrutiny, superstition and disdain and in response he used his ways to infact bond with his brothers and sisters in a bid to escape. Soon the time came, the children were sent into a forest in the Land of Darkness, forced to hunt and kill one another. Kouzai sought to use this time as an escape, feign a fight with his siblings and escalate it to a chase until they were out of sight. Was a fair plan, but other children from the clan unfamiliar with him only saw him as their parents did, a lamb for the slaughter. Kouzai’s white clothes ran red, innocence being killed away as he left offerings for the cruel god that his mad kin had feverishly served.
Things went from bad to worse when their escape plan finally did hit it off, they were cut off by a number of officiating clan members, their treason was a clear path to death but they survived as village shinobi sprung their trap and caught the clan offguard. Kouzai felt the blood of his father on his face and hands but he died so instantly that Kouzai couldn’t even hear the last words that might have eased his mind. Lashing out, he uselessly cried out angry and confused phrases before being comforted by his sister. Together they left their camp to burn as they wandered through the wilderness, Kouzai took responsibility to find homes for each of his siblings in different villages in Iron Country, but once he finished he merely wandered away, subconsciously expecting to die of thirst or hunger before being happened upon by an old trader.
Encountering the strange by with a crudely formed mask, he revealed he was a blacksmith that was planning on returning to Cloud Village with supplies for his craft. Kouzai, still shaken, refused to speak but eventually felt something unlike anything he had felt – warmth. It melted away the rusting metal shell that smothered his heart but proved to reveal how flawed he was. Notably very happy, he tended to scare customers off with his strange sense of humor which bordered on the dark, disgusting or offensive, if it at all even made sense. His play was often erratic, clumsy, and resulted in injuries near constantly.
His addled mind however took to hammering metal with an uncanny sense that was generally rare in students of the craft. Simultaneously, Kouzai demanded to enroll as a Academy Student, after seeing them first hand in action, the blood they drew, it seemed like the only natural calling he had felt besides crafting. Concern aside, by the time Kouzai passed his genin exam he had the equivalent skill at hammering steel of a journeyman.
Throughout his more calm life, dreading guilt plagued his dreams but when his foster father grew ill and turned over responsibilities for the shop over to Kouzai until he improved, the man was murdered by would-be muggers that Kouzai would fend off whilst on a drug run. Such persons responsible were never found again once Kouzai was finished, but still, in an act of grieving he would see that the man that gave him a new perspective on life was properly buried, but burned the only home he truly ever knew down because he felt, deep down, he didn’t deserve it for being a failure.
His jounrey to SunagakureKouzai’s path was a little wondrous, as he approached the mountains. The swamp just in one valley, there was roughly 7 more before he made it to the pass that led him to Sunagakure. He loved this part of the country, high peaks, capped with snow, valley’s, some deep and dangerous, stone bridges that connected almost the entire way. Just huge slabs of rock jutting out, one from one side, one from the other, connecting in the middle. Study and also no side rails, it would be easy to fall off if the winds were stronger. He had heard of the gar, the rock rain that hailed down upon parts of Sunagakure, but lucky for him, he wasn’t traveling in that part today. He learned that a group of ruffians had caused trouble there some years back, but most of Iwagakure had been quiet, especially under the iron fist of the Tsuchikage.
Kouzai would stop at the supply/small little village carved into the face of the mountain before heading to Sunagakure. He would load up on water, a small cloak and goggles to get the sand out of his eyes. He hoped that nothing would get tarnished or sand blasted, his tools would be more difficult to fix if they got sand blasted. The mountains were something to behold, and he only passed a handful of people on his way up, not many people came this way anymore. Sunagakure and Iwagakure weren’t always on the friendliest of terms, perhaps that’s why they sent him here. He had heard it was raining higher up, but should stop by the time he got to the pass.
His journey was long, this was perhaps the most difficult, going to Iwagakure was easy, it was mainly downhill, here, well this was all uphill, the wind would sometimes catch you at just the right angle, cold and bitter as it swept down from the mountain. It wasn’t easy, and his legs were sure getting a work out, like his arms, finally one could say he didn’t skip a leg workout. He wondered just how many people it took to make these pathways, then realized ninja could do it, they could always do it, with ninjutsu and such fancy things. Coming up to the small shop, he wondered if he should stay the night, perhaps it was best, he really didn’t know how far into the desert it would take. He bought some supplies, extra water, some rations, a small tent. He was most worried about being caught in a sand storm, people seemed to say they were vicious out there, speaking as if they were a demon made of dust. He would rest, found a small inn, cheap, slept on a straw bed. His head filled with images of his day, and thinking about those ninja, playing gods by changing the landscape, as if it always belonged there.
Kouzai sure wondered how long it would be before he could stop worrying about the next penny. He would leave early in the morning, and head out. The desert would be an experience and adventure all in its own. Something about it just sung to him, a vast ocean of sand, wind and of course those pesky Sunagakure’s, who were so stingy when they checked his wares. Stingy wasn’t even the best word, they wanted to be 1 thing, and get 3 for free, or mend one object and get another for free. It would be an adventure of a life time, visiting the great sand citidal.
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