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Niflheim P. [Approved; 1-1+]
Thu Mar 31, 2016 6:00 pm
ENTER THE DEPTHS
Artist: Mogeko Castle - Song: N/A - Word Count: N/A
I. Basic Information
- Current Name: NiflheimP
- Original Name: Rakkī yajirushi Date
- Titles: P the Power , Marksman of the Date Clan , The Perfect Shot
- Gender: Female
- Age: 1000
- Bloodline: [Pure blooded Quincy]
- Affiliation/Rank: Vandenreich
- Appearance Age: 16
- Appearance Description:
Snow White Skin: Niflheim’s skin is almost the color of the freshly fallen snow. Luminous it isn’t pale like someone who is an albino or someone who has naturally no pigmentation in their skin. Instead her skin is bizzare in the fact that it is naturally simply, white. Without blemish, without worldly imperfection, it is this skin that is the first hint of “otherness” about her that is one of the defining features about this girl. Take for example how her skin naturally behaves when the sun isn’t even out, it is luminous and even takes on a glow of it’s own as if it has a internal kind of light filtering out into the world around it. As if it has it’s own luster, similar to how the moon reflects the light of the sun down into the earth in the dead of night. That is an apt description of how her pigmentation behaves with the world around it. It naturally reflects the light, causing for this girl to be often mistaken for a snow-fairy, or some kind of snow princess, or otherworldly being.
Now this changes completely when the sun it out however, her skin blazes like snow does when the light hits it, reflecting the light in different directions thanks to her skin literally being a lovely pale whitish color that is highly reflective to the light. It gives of a halo of light when hit by the sun, [not to be confused with the twilight saga’s “sparkle” ] this light can obscure her appearance a tad rather than it making it easier to see her. While at the same time it also is one of her defining visible traits in terms of how she looks. This stunning skin of hers is as far as she know’s unique and 100% herself.
Silver Eyes: Niflheims eyes are the color of silver, like the precious metal that was seconded in the ages of old to only gold, this is the color of the eyes that Niflheim has, and there is another interesting fact about them, given the center is a normal black dot, and so is the black outer ring. However inside? Her eyes themselves while only the normal silver shade, have a multitude of different silver pigmentations, a kaleidoscope of silver if you will, and each of these varying tones mash together to create the general singular shade that you see afar in her eyes, which look similar to the silver you would see in a jewelers store, if a jeweler was to sell silver in it’s liquidated state that is, given her eyes have a fluidity to them, in terms of the color, as sometimes it will be a silver that is so light that it borders on the color of platinum, and other times? The color will be a simple medium silver, and in times of anger she might even have a color of silver that looks more like shadow silver, or stone silver than it would look like regular silver colorations.
Thigh Boots: One of the more interesting facets of her appearance would be her thigh-high boots. Pure white like the snow, but also durable, these boots themselves seem to at a glance just to be made from a simple shimmering fabric, almost like cloth. However on closer inspection one might see the trace amounts of reishi running through them, or might see the interweaving of threads that comprise the white surface of her boots, boots that are made to withstand the duress of battle while looking stylish, that is the main intention of this addition to her arsenal that is her physical appearance. The platform heel is probably three inches tall, giving her stature a boost which turns her from simply looking graceful to an individual being who might have the regality belonging to that of a queen, not to mention the light stitchwork on the side of the boots which match her tastes perfectly
White Silver Hair: Another Peculiarity is the pigmentation of her hair, it is the color of the fallen snow. However the only real change other than that is that her hair is naturally laced with a coloration that is similar to silver, this makes her hair have a variating silver white color that ties together the snowy appearance of her skin, and the silver hue of her eyes, a contrast that seems to blend together well to make a stunning coloration that almost makes her hair look like it is instead of merely hair, a combination of precious metals that instead just grow naturally from her head itself. However still that is just how her hair itself looks even though it isn’t precious metals or anything otherwordly like that, it just is merely her hair, nothing more and nothing less.
- Appearance Picture: (If you have one, link a picture of your character.)
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II. Personality Traits
S-The Shell: NiflHeim’s Outer personality is known as the shell It stems from the dissonance between her real self and the self that she generally tends to portray. Because of this she seems for the most part to be cold, distant and hard to approach. This isn’t really because she is horrible or a bad person, but instead is because she herself has a “break” or phobia of getting close to people, which led to over the years an enclosure being erected around her gentle and tender self that is known as P- the Persona. So the shell itself has some characteristics that are different in comparison to her real self. Take for example when in interaction with people she tends to behave closed off, without any real emotions to be shown. From this you get a sense of the outer ice field that has given her the name niflheim the norse tundra of snow and ice that expands in every direction.
Not to be confused with a lack of emotion, though it isn’t that she isn’t emotionally competend, it’s that there is a cage which she uses to lock down those emotions, making it so that while she feels emotions such as pain, fear, love, hatred and everything under the sun, there is an impenetrable willpower that has allowed her to separate the two, meaning even if someone was to slaughter and break her world, she wouldn’t even show or flinch in terms of interactions, this is because of her willpower, the indominantable force of will that has allowed her to construct something that is as immobile as S- the shell. In a way itself, it can be considered to be beyond just merely a personality, it is one of her trademarks. The “Ice Queen” Persona.
Such as when talking to other people? She tends to be reserved, formal, and indifferent. She lets her logical side rule in conversations such as what is useful to the betterment of vandenreich or what is completely useless and baseless. Because of this her S- The Shell is somewhat unique, it isn’t just a mere “Personality” But a kind of barrier between her ideal self that she has constructed and her real self. Because of this the other real trademark of the shell is that she seems to be able to shut down on all her emotions, even as they are blooming in her chest she can shut them down without fail, like if she feels and unforgivable anger at someone, the kind that drives a person to madness? She could arguably shut it down on will alone, it isn’t because she doesn’t care. She actually cares alot about things that go on around her, it’s just simply that she has the willpower and the mental fortitude that she won’t act upon that anger and will let her cooler head prevail rather than making a huge deal out of it.
Another Example of S-The Shell is that even say if she had her body torn apart, she wouldn’t show the pain, like if you ripped her nerves out raw and began to stimulate them to make the most unbelievable pain possible? She wouldn’t act on it, unless she chose to because of the willpower that she possesses. Even if you broke her fingers one by one, healed her and then broke her fingers again? She wouldn’t act, this isn’t because she has some otherworldly pain tolerance, and it definitively isn’t because she doesn’t feel pain. Instead it is because she has such control over herself that unless she wants to act upon that pain? There isn’t going to be a way to get her to feel any type of emotion period. Because of this more importantly though this also means even if you say made her experience something like thousands of deaths? She probably wouldn’t even show a flicker of an emotion, not precisely because she isn’t bothered by it, but instead because again of that insane control that she has over herself, a control that is indominatable to the point that arguably there may be some situations that could unsettle her, but there is less than a 0.0001% of a chance to actually get her to visibly express any kind of emotion, because emotions to her are a crutch she doesn’t need, so she just shuts them down completely.
Beyond this S-The shell has some key characteristics that comprise it, such as her formal behavior that leads to her being courteous in every situation, rather than simply being formal to people without reason, this is because she as a vandenreich member knows the importance of putting on a good face for the organization, rather than being the unruly child that sets a bad example she is always on her best behavior, doing what she can to make the organization grow and prosper. So this means generally no matter who the person is she tends to be kind to them and treat them with respect. This isn’t because she feels the need to assert this nature, but rather because she feels that it is important to put her best personality forward. The only difference is this isn’t Genuine Courtesy, this is a fake Courtesy which is dictated by the shells need to be an ideal version of herself.
This is also because of the fact that she is the sternritter grandmaster. The leader of the sternritters and this means she needs to set an example for the rest of them, if she isn’t doing her job to the best of her abilities how are they going to be able to follow her example? That is what goes through S-The Shells mind when she is interacting with people on a day to day basis. This means that this is considered a integral part of the shells persona and there generally is beyond events that are ungodly and impossible to negotiate through generally no way to break this part of her, heaven and hell could align and because of her willpower the willpower that created this persona in the first place? She won’t change, not because she can’t but because it is a conscious choice of not changing that truly makes her so strange in the first place, because she just won’t change as there is no reason to change.
There is also the concept of Unity that is hammered into the shells lengthy persona. She believes that to make a unified team one must set the example, being at the front lines and forcing change with an indomitable will that will not change even with the world itself ends. She takes on each task as if it is something vital to the existence of the vandenreich. Even if it is something as simple as going to talk to people who could possibly align with them ? She does it to the best of her abilities, not because she feels it to be necessary but because she needs to be the one to pave the path forward for her people, her emperor and for her own self. This is why she will never be the one directing things from the shadows, she uses her own power to move mountains for her people. There is no mountain high enough and there is no ocean deep enough to stop her from doing this.
Infact in terms of what she will do for unity in her people? There is nothing that will stop her absolutely nothing because of her willpower she will push through any pain, any barrier. Even if that barrier is her own life? She will discard that life for the greater good and then even when her bones decay because of the indomitable will that is the shell? She will keep going even if only through her spiritual energy to keep everything together? She will not falter she will not stop, and she will not cease because of the fact that to her there is absolutely nothing more important than her people, nothing more important than unity, than making the quincy a power that is great again. Nothing is higher to her purpose than that, the concept of “Unity”
Then there is the concept of the punisher, S-The Shell, her major persona is known to punish those who cease to follow the rules of the vandenreich, she will not rest until they are brought to justice, even if that means she must hunt them to the ends of the earth. Nothing is considered “too hard” or “too dauntless” for her. Even if that person is her beloved, her loved one, her emperor or her god. She will bring them to justice and meat out the punishment herself if others are too afraid to do so, as she considers herself to be the pillar that her emperor her people, and her organization leans upon so that they may get stronger, And because of that? She continues to strive to be stronger and stronger, even if it’s only her will that brings this forth? So be it to her, and this is why if someone breaks the code of vandenreich? She becomes a monster which will be rooted into their very nightmares, she will take them and then beat the rules back into them if she must, because that is a part of who she is, of what she is.
This doesn’t mean that she is unfair in her punishments however, rather it just means that when people are disobeying the rules, that she will meet out the punishment that is necessary, she won’t precisely go overboard because she is only wanting to give the person the punishment that they deserve. It is an entirely different matter to her to go overboard in giving punishments, to her there is no point in doing that because that will just breed more resentment. She herself doesn’t see that resentment to be necessary, or warranted. Instead she feels that she is only obligated to give out the amount of punishment that is set by what rule they broke, such as if they betray vandenreich she may just chop off their hand, or if they did something minor like speak back to a superior when it isn’t time to do so? She might just send them to a reflection chamber for the remainder of the day, she isn’t cruel or unfair, as those things are not something she sees to be a viable manner of keeping order within the organization.
Next there is the concept of control, this is something that the shell has in spades, to the point that she could be considered to be the “pinnacle” of control. She doesn’t even flinch at having limbs cut off, you can insult her with every word possible and this indomitable control that is her willpower will not break. You could kill her loved ones, you could break her bones slowly one by one, and she still will not falter, this is because to an extent she doesn’t see her body as belonging to her own self, instead seeing it merely as another tool which can be used to help her people become great again. Because of this she has almost no concept of self preservation for her own sake, hence this godly level of control over her own psyche that transcends what one can achieve when they are only thinking about themselves. She has only achieved this level of control by discarding her sense of self and instead maintaining the sense of “purpose” over any other kind of sense through her willpower alone.
This control extends to masking her other emotions as well as explained before, she is a wall that gives away nothing that she doesn’t want to give away. Because of this it means that even if someone was to say, force her to do something she didn’t want to do? This wouldn’t show on her face unless she wanted it to. Each of her emotions is under a control that is stronger than steel, forged by her understanding of her position, and the need that the vandenreich has for someone who can calmly think and who can make actions without feeling, without bias, without a need or want for their own personal gain. This is the kind of person the Shell’s persona is, the ideal, the perfect leader in a sense, even if she does answer to the emperor and the emperor alone. She has a willpower that transcends logic, and one that defies all reason, because of this it is what makes her a potent player for the vandenreich.
Next is the logic, the shell is highly logical rather than feeling things with the heart, the head is the force that prevails, because of this it is arguably one of the more known traits that can been noticed in the shell. She thinks each thing through before adressing them, and then and only then does she act upon them. Given the previous statements about her willpower and how she behaves, it shouldn’t be hard to figure out that she tends to react to things on a level that is completely void of any emotion, this is because of that insane willpower that she has, which allows her to only react to things that she feels she wants to react to, because of this and more importantly thanks to this, it means that she doesn’t generally act upon things that bother her in a general way shape or form.
P- The Persona: P-The Persona is the personality you get when the shell has been stripped down to it’s base levels. If someone is trusted enough they might get to the point of seeing the personality that lies beneath that impenetrable wall that is the shell. This is her less than ideal self, the self that makes her human rather than some kind of spiritual being that might not have these emotions, however because of the fact that P-The Persona is hidden underneath the vastness that is S-The Shell , it is rare to even see this persona in the first place, as instead of it being a common personality it is her truest essence of who she is, instead of it being something that is minor, P-The Persona is who she is on a very fundamental level, with all her generalized flaws and imperfections.
Such as P-The Persona is empathetic and she understands people on a fundamental level, she doesn’t perhaps agree with them but she can understand why they act like they do. There is a certain softness about her that isn’t seen in her ideal self, she reacts with a kind of motherly vibe that would normally undermine her as s-the shell and such is normally never seen nor brought to the surface. However if one was to see this empathetic side? They would first notice that she doesn’t fake her emotions, they are genuine and heartfelt, they don’t seem to come from a logical place either. These come from the heart and show her true feelings. Like if she cares about someone? If she’s P- The Persona she will express that by possibly blushing, or even acting as if she was embarrassed on some level, however this would depend on what the situation was of course, given she can’t just giggle and blush like an idiot at everything she see’s and or hears.
Beyond this her empathy extends to the situations of others, such as if someone was having a bad day, she might understand that and as a result treat them differently so that they might even if it’s just a tiny bit. Feel a bit better, or she might help an old lady up the stairs that was expressing their own back-pain, it all depends on what the situation calls for and more importantly what is needed. For this reason her empathy is a wide encompassing part of P-The Persona, seeing as unlike S-The Shell she is very compassionate, she understands and wants to understand people, because she wants to help them, while s-the shell wants to understand people so that she can unify them better under a single flag, a single race, with a single purpose in mind to bring the quincy into a new golden age.
P-The Persona also is a tad sassy, she can be impish and antsy depending on the situation at hand, known for playing tricks on people, or teasing someone in a way that might be considered to be especially “tricky” It all depends on the situation with her. For example with P- The Persona she might even do something like nip someone on the nose, or give them a kiss on the cheek, or even depending on her mood she might if she was bored enough, wrap her arms around a complete stranger and give them a tight hug and loving squeeze, however because of this? She also is known to play tricks on people, such as putting super-glue in their pants or even hanging them upside-down by their toes, which is one of the things that makes p-the persona kind of strange in terms of how she behaves. It is a stark contrast from S-The Shell that is generally straightforward and to the point.
This sass goes beyond mere impish teasing though, as she might even do something like stick her tongue out at an important figure on an enemy. It is geniune disrespect in some cases, because at heart? Niflheim was a wild child and this is personified in P-the Persona, where as the perfect shell which is S-The Shell doesn’t have this trait, as it is something that might be considered to be harmful to the good of the vandenreich. As such she seems to have this kind of “Childish” streak about her which is personified as pure sassy impish negligent behavior if she’s showing this personality to another person. Yet it all depends on what is going on and how the situation is panning out, in which if a person is able to even get to the point that they would be able to sense or see this particular trait in action on its own.
Then There is love, P the Persona does feel a deep encompassing love for others, and if someone was able to get to the point that they actually had been able to see P- The Persona’s love, it might be a testament to how good they are at getting through the chinks that it takes to even get to this point. Given her heart is tender, and pure, with a bounty as wide as the sea, for that special someone who is able to even breach her defenses to get here. To those that manage to get to this point? They will never be betrayed by her, they will be at the forefront of her mind, and she will essentially do anything for them, because of the fact that it just is so absurdly rare for a person to be able to get to this point in the first place, it just simply is something that isn’t going to happen “normally” or “on a whim” it takes hard work and dedication to get to this point in the first place.
III. Character History
[birth is in 3rd person]
Birth-Early Childhood: Rakkī yajirushi Date was born out of wedlock in the year 1383 to the head family of the Date Clan, a clan of samurai that had been around since the early kamakura period, there wasn’t anything startling about her birth, instead the young babe had been born on a stormy night in monsoon season, under a particular star, she was predicted by a seer or a lady who was thought to be able to see into the future, to live a life with a bow in her hand until the day she died, her mother and father hadn’t said much to that notion, but rather had decided that there wasn’t much to say about that manner in which this “seer” had told them a family of prominent samurai that their only daughter and the heir to the family would be drawn to a bow, rather than the tool of the family trade the sword, in fact the reason they didn’t say much is because they had been superstitious folk who believed things to be pre-ordained by the great powers that be and the emperor of the time. That things weren’t created by human or other people but rather by the gods, the beings that made the earth, the skies and even the spiritual cycle that all things that birthed into eventually would die into.
This was why on that night as the babes chord was cut, and then cauterized via heating a blade, which was how they originally seemed to do things, instead of having things done in the manner of just cutting the chord and letting it bleed everywhere, it seemed the sensible thing to do at least was to cut it, and then make it in such a way that the blood wouldn’t fall, that the babe would be borne into this world in it’s strongest conditions, and that night they had lay items infront of the infant to see what she would pick as if to check what the seer said to see if it was true, and the first thing the babe touched? As if her hand gravitated to it’s very essence, was an arrow. It was the first thing she touched in her life, and it was something that she seemed to clutch to the point that no matter what was tried they could not get the girl to even try to remove the arrow, and instead waited till the babe was asleep before they tried to remove the arrow from her person once more. Even then they found her tiny baby fingers wound too tightly to remove that arrow from her clutches.
That was when they decided to name this babe, name her based on the way she clutched that arrow to her tiny little chest as if it was her lifeline, they decided that in a clan of samurai they would have to make an exception. Something that only could happen to someone born as the sole heir of the family, as the individual that would eventually take up the mantle of the date, it was decided that they wouldn’t make this babe learn the ways of the sword as they would any other member of the family, as that was their path. Everyone born into the family was made to live and die by the sword, by the code of honor, by the way they lived their very own lives, honor was everything, above all honor and independance, there was nothing else that was important to her father, her mother and her family in this world other than these facts. Because of this they hoped that she would be able to live her life in a manner that would bring great honor to their household, to be able to make them stronger because she was born, and as such the girl was born with a burden that was soul crushing, however this is unknown to her as of yet, for now? The first words she was told the first words she came into this world knowing was the name her parents gave her.
That Name Was Rakkī yajirushi Date or the Lucky Arrow Date, named in hopes that she would eventually bring great prosperity to the clan, and make it so that they would be able to become a prominent figure in the world around them, she would be the only person in the clan in that era that was to be excluded from the sam urai training. The only individual that would instead of fighting in that time period would learn the bow and the arrow, that was the path they chose for her, and as such? All they had to do was wait, wait for her to grow.They waited until she was strong enough to hold a small bow, and that was the age of roughly five, she didn’t understand the reason she was drug every night at midnight and told to shoot arrows till morning, nor was she told why she had to then to excercises that no kid her age had to do, what they didn’t have to understand learn or know, while other girls learned how to either wield a sword or to be a good housewife? Rakki learned the arts of the arrow, how to shoot to kill, how to shoot to maim, how to shoot precisely to knock arrows out of the air, she learned all of these things while they didn’t teach her anything else, other than the main neccesities such as how to read, how to write, how to do maths, this was her life as a small child, molded strictly by her own parents motivations to succeed.
Early Childhood- Late Childhood [ Characters Narration]
“..I’m So Hungry” Rakki had said slowly with the rather simplistic language that she was taught, not the sophisticated aristocratic tongue that was used in the courts, but a low down to earth language that was soft, simple and easy on the ears, the language of a child. She wanted to go inside, to eat and to eat well, she was exhausted from the exercises she had been forced to do every since she had hit her 5th year of age, and yet she knew if she didn’t do them there would be worse punishments, she would have to work more, to learn more and to try the whole practice over again if she didn’t do things properly if she didn’t learn things properly. This notion is what kept her moving long after the muscles which screamed in her arms should have given out, her seven year old body not having the proper developement needed yet to shoot arrows extremely far distances, currently she was focusing on speed and accuracy, as she did every day she did it again today, her usual regiment which consisted of.
Running 10 miles, then firing several hundred arrows at seventy different targets in repetition, these targets always would be at random places and she would always have to find ways to shoot each target from the same position, meaning moving targets which had been rigged up? She had to figure out how to hit those things as well, rather than moving away from them or running from them? She had to hit them head on if she wanted to do things properly, and if she missed it? Well when rakki missed and that target ended up hitting the end of the rope the weight would pull the rope downwards on that side, which would cause a bell to ring. If any bells rang? She had to spend the extra thirty minutes to an hour resetting the entire thing. Only after which she would have to start again and again until she finally managed to shoot each of those targets atleast ten times. It was something that tired her out, something that she dreaded doing but she would do it anyway, she would force herself to move her arms until they burned, until she was unable to lift that bow, until her body screamed at her to stop, cried at her to stop, begged her to stop. Yet she would still push through that pain and keep going, with single minded focus and determination she would continue to force herself to continue down the path which was needed to get stronger. Now the question was why would she force herself to get so much stronger? It was because she had one thing drilled in her mind in that age, it was 100% isn’t enough, break through that barrier and push to new heights. And so she would do just that.
Most days she was out shooting arrows from dawn to dusk after her run, it wasn’t as if she wanted to do that, but it was what she was trained to do and what she was supposed to do. She wasn’t someone who was given leniency, especially because she had overheard the argument that her parents had to make with the other branch family heads, who all had to make their children into samurai to follow the code that governed them until their deaths. Her parents had been given the ultimatum that if she wasn’t able to kill several men within the span it took to draw a sword by her twelfth year of life? They would kill her, they would gut her because of her disgrace as someone who was borne into a family of samurai and yet was not a samurai because at birth she was pre-ordained a different path by a seer. This was the only way that from what she heard , that kept the people from the branch of her family instead of the head household from rebelling and potentially killing not only her, but her entire family, and driven even at that young age. Where she didn’t understand it well, she wanted to prevent this to prevent the pain of a divided family. Thus she trained.
She trained like a demon, instead of like a human, even when her body failed her mind drove her further, her willpower her determination and her tenacity brought her through many days where she was practically turning her muscles into jelly, turning her very bones into liquid through the repetition of pulling a bow back and firing it, and yet? Every day she got better, and she got faster. Rakki was beginning to see improvement in her own strength, and that was something she loved she wanted to get stronger, better with her bow for her parents sake. They had sacrificed so much for her, had made it so she could pursue this path which was different from everyone else in her family. Made it so that not only she could pursue it but that she could pursue it without trouble and without worry, they had worked so hard to give her a break to do it, and because of this? She would kill for her family, she would fight for her family and she would not only fight but she knew she would fight for the death for them, even at the age of seven she knew she would be loyal to her father and mother the people who gave everything to her, for all eternity. She owed them that, the loyalty, the unconditional love, and the undying honor that she needed to cultivate everything was for them, everything that she had in her very being was for them.
First Mission/Late Childhood Cont:
“..So i am to kill the rogues that lay on the outskirts of our northern village. . . huh “ Rakki had been mumbling to herself as she was on the road, the cloak which bore no insignia on it’s outside being a reversible one made of black fabric to match the night itself had allowed to her to easily blend into the shadows themselves. To allow her more importantly to hide in the dead of night. On the eve of her 10th year of life she had been given a task. It had come when she was sitting across from her father, the head of the household, and she was polishing her bow, the strong recurve which she finally had become able to string just a month before her birthday, a bow which was carved from a branch of a sakura tree, and made to be able to fire an arrow with enough power to imbed itself deeply inside of the side of a tree, or if a case arose enough force to even punch through smaller trees it just depended on how much power she was supposed to put into it, however it was at this time her father spoke to her and rakki listened, as she had learned if nothing else she was to treat her father with the upmost respect possible, that she wasn’t supposed to even have the slightest of sounds escape her mouth, she was to just listen. Now as she listened she was told of what she was supposed to do, she was to go to a town that was a day and a halfs hard ride in their territory bordering the mountains proper this was a town that was plagued by bandits which had been undermining the town’s integrity as well as making off with many of the village mens wives daughters and even livestock, she was to kill them, she had been told that plain and simple she was to murder them in cold blood and then leave.
That was what had brought her here to this town, even as her nerves shook and her mind was on many different things, such as how was she going to take these bandits out, how was she going to live through the night on her own. How was she going to eat, where was she going to sleep? She was a scared girl even with all this honor and hope going through her mind, ingrained there. She wasn’t even a woman and she had already been thrust into an adults world of murder, it was her mission to kill these people and she had waited finally until she was under the cover of night, and she had snuck up to the place where the bandits slept two sentries outside of the cave with their spears resting firmly against the ground. She had waited until the moon was firmly covered by the clouds then before she had decided to act. Stringing her bow silently as if she was the grave, and then knocking one of the arrows she had in her quiver to the bow. Muscles shaking as she drew it all the way back to then fire it, the arrow whistling through the air before finally it found it’s mark, imbedding itself into the neck of the sentry that was to the left of the cave opening. This sentry only let out one gurgle of suprise before he fell back, blood gushing from the arrow wound in his neck. This alerted the other guard who let out a shout of dismay, one loud enough to raise the alarm and wake up all of the other marauders/bandits that had hidden within the compound itself previously.
As they came pouring from the hole she had knocked another arrow, with silence, precision and without any time to think about it, the arrows shooting one after the other from her bow as if there was nothing more she could do about it, other than listening to the order her father had given. Each one of these arrows had found their mark then, through the eyes of some of the bandits arrows had shot through with enough force that the steel glinted through the back of their skulls. Others had been shot through the ribs, the arrow managing to puncture both the lung and the heart at the same time , others had been shot squarely in the neck, the force behind her arrows having caused the individuals to literally choke because of the suprising amount of strength that she had ammassed from those insane workouts she had been doing all her life. Given she was using a bow with a 80 pound draw even at the age of 10 it made sense that she was able to cleanly sever through their spines with a shot from her arrows, the sharp metal tip slicing through the bone like butter, causing them to fall down on the ground.
It was over before it even had started for her, as she had shot each one of them quickly and cleanly they had died without even knowing the location of the attacker, let alone their gender, beyond this she had also been able to completely destroy them without much problem, as she was able to discern each one even in the low lighting without much of a problem thanks to her keen vision. Yet that wasn’t the problem, it was the psychological trauma that came from the realization that she had killed someone, that she had actually ended the lives of many people, and she thought about this as she went to collect her arrows, and tears even began to fall from her face, the fear of killing was balanced by the relief of not being killed, of being able to live and to breathe another day. She had been so greatful that she was alive that it was shameful to her. Samurai didn’t fear death, her father didn’t fear death and her mother didn’t fear death so why.. Why was it she was so glad to be alive? She didn’t understand it the way her heart seemed to be pounding violently in her chest, how she wasn’t able to even process things through the sound of her blood roaring through her veins, she merely continued to collect her arrows as blood covered her and then she began her ride home.
The ride back to her home was a weary one, even after she had traveled on horseback for many miles she had still remained drowsy in her saddle, which was bouncing up and down without much of a problem, it wasn’t that she was tired however as she came home, instead it was that she was in a state of intense psychological shock, her mind wasn’t really able to process the fact that she had killed someone, she was trying to wrap her mind around the concept that even if they were bandits that she had indeed actually taken the life of another because she was told to do so. She had ended their lives without any warning nor without respect, she didn’t let them know who was killing them, instead she just had killed them there and left them there without even bothering to move or hide the bodies. That was something that bothered her, that she hadn’t even bothered to hide those bodies , instead she had decided to leave them there for the crows. So that their bodies would be eaten up torn apart and then strewn about the land, they would rot away to nothing eventually she knew it, and she even wondered if they would eventually come back and haunt her as vengance. But she didn’t care, she just wanted to get home to wash off all the blood.
She got home some time the next day after killing them having ridden her horse harder than she had on the way there, greeting her father and telling him that the bandits had been dead was a great thing, he had for once seemed proud of her, or atleast gave her praise for finishing the job and coming home without a scratch on her, as most individuals would have ended up gravely injured, which was why for now atleast rakki seemed to enjoy it, the way in which she was able to be praised without having to worry about what the catch to it was, and after she went to her room, she went out back to the hotsprings which they had next to their house, dipping down inside to rub her skin raw trying to scrub off the blood that had stained her hands and her arms, pale skin showing like the moon above, she tried and tried to scrub the memories away.
First Battle:
When she was twelve she was forced to participate in a battle with the shogun that at the time the date family was backing, to face insurgents in the east which where coming down to try to take over the prefecture she was sent with a group of samurai to aid the shogun and their army. Rakki remembers when she was moving the smell of blood and oil, it wasn’t as if she was at the time unfamiliar to these scents given over the two years following her first instance of killing she had bathed herself in blood almost on a daily basis having to go from place to place to kill people for her father, for her family, for her fathers superiors. In the local area around her she had actually become someone who was a rather well known “Assassin” a being that would continue to kill when ordered to, and not only would do so but at the same time wouldn’t kill the weak, elderly or women who were pregnant, she spared them because she couldn’t understand taking lives like those for no reason, it was not only pointless but to kill a life that was not yet borne atleast to her was a kind of sin, as such the day she was told by her father that she was going to go to war? To her it was a relief to know that she would be only killing enemies weighed less on her conscience then possibly having to kill people that didn’t even deserve it because she had to protect her families honor, such things didn’t even for the most part atleast make sense to her, she didn’t want to even have to protect that honor, it was worthless to her in a sense seeing that she didn’t even need it, she respected her parents but not her family anymore, they had forced her to kill way to many times to gain that kind of right.
She had been brought to the battle field and stationed on the rear guard, so that she could pick off people with the uncanny “knack” she had with an arrow that had gotten her noticed and picked for such a job in the first place. At her vantage point she could see the flag of the enemy army which was seventy thousand strong over the horizon. The endless sea of bodies which surged down the crest of the hill covering all the grass, making it seem like an absolute madhouse to her to say the least, the fact that there was so many people running to their deaths, and then the fact that she would have to kill them. All of it to her was absolutely ludicrous it didn’t make sense, and she didn’t want it. Yet she still strung her bow and readied it, using her keen eye sight to be able to pick out her first targets, blood thrumming through her veins as she held her hand firm and waited, counted her breathes and once they got within her mighty bows range? She fired, knocked an arrow and fired again, the deafening roar of thousands of voices rising up like a wave to hammer into her eardrums, and even still she continued to fire one arrow after the other again and again rakki fired taking down bodies with each of her arrows, taking them out one after the other without mercy with indifference. Even as people around her began to be pushed back? She would pick up the arrows from the bodies of the fallen, knock them even when they had been slick with blood took aim and fired some more, hammering arrow after arrow into the enemy without any remorse It didn’t matter to her whose blood remained on those arrows, instead she just cared that she would be able to continue firing them.
She was so focused however on firing them that she missed an enemy that blindsided her from the flank, cutting down her brow to her cheek , narrowly missing her eyes while biting deep into her flesh. That was an offense that she repaid in kind, slamming the tip of an arrow deep into his eye socket to penetrate and skewer his brain. After he dropped twitching to the ground she had pulled the arrow out of his head, knocked it and then fired using her good eye even though it screwed with her depth perception greatly, making it so that she was unable to fully discern the distance between her Opponent and her arrow , she still made up for it by firing straight and true, the amount of force behind exherted from her bow being plenty for her, atleast it was enough for her to nail most of the individuals firmly in the chest, instead of in the arm, or the neck. To make up for her lack of vision she made up for it simply in this method firing off arrows rapidly one after the other to slam into enemy after enemy littering the battlefield with the corpses of her foes, without sympathy for those who would be left behind after these individuals died, because that didn’t matter to her. What mattered to her was instead was the fact that she wasn’t able to kill enough, she had begun to get a taste for fighting the adrenaline that went along with the battlefield thrilled her to the very core of her being, it made her want to kill more and more people to fight harder, and to even see her foes fall before her, it made her feel alive in every way that was known to her being. Because of this she would become known on that bloody battlefield while others faded into obscurity her archery skill was stuff of legend even at the age of twelve her skills where enough that she was recognised for them and she was revered because of them.
The Warring States Marksman: By the time She had turned fourteen rakki was known throughout the warring states as a marksman of unbelievable skill. Some thought she was a god in human form a being that was supreme in the same way that the emperor was considered at the time to either be blessed by god or some kind of minor god on his own, this was her legend, she was the best archer in japan at the time due to her considerable talents and skills, unlike how individuals who just let their talents go to waste did? She had trained them and worked her butt off , and now? She was an amazing individual who had brought unbelievable honor to her household and her clan, Not because she wanted to show off, but because she had worked hard to reach this level of success, she had spat out blood, ground out her heart, fought through wars and got psychologically shaken up because of it, she had braved training on sheer willpower where her body would not move otherwise, it was thanks to this that she became a legend in her own right and now? She was reaping the benifits of it, such as she didn’t seem to stay in a single place anymore, during this time she was a nomad more than anything a period that spanned between the eve of her 14th birthday she instead of doing things for her clan decided to head out to the world on her own and make a name for herself and further raise her clan’s status through her own conquests.
One such incident came in the fall of her fourteenth year of life, she was in what would later be known as the iga province where she had been eating and some bandits had come in. Her reaction was to quickly pull her bow out string an arrow and then shoot the bandit in the throat only after he had begun trying to rob people in the establishment. It wasn’t because she hated them. On the contrary Rakki understood more then anyone probably why they did what they did. They had to live on their own without a clan, or because they had been kicked out of their clan. It was a very harsh way of life that did very little to help those individuals who needed it, because of this they had no option but to continue to kill to steal and the murder, and she hated it to the very core of her being, these people who got themselves in a ditch and couldn’t pull their own way out. Yet she wouldn’t let them live if they continued to try to harm others when she could prevent it, her honor didn’t allow her to let them live, and thus? She killed the bandit without a seconds hesitation, she had murdered him by shooting an arrow through the side of his neck, passing clean through and sticking there within the meaty sinew with blood spurting out of it. The man had fallen then, smashing into the ground with a thud that could echo around the entire room, a room that was now filled with silence as everyone seemed to stare at the dead body which was bleeding out on the floor, then people seemed to scream and began to run, given in that area it seemed to bandits actually had a strong foothold, something that needed to be changed, to be uprooted before anything worse took place. Because of this Rakki had picked up her bow and then asked the nearest person where the bandits hideout was and then she had gone after it.
Trudging to the outskirts of the city to another cave in which these bandits seemed to live. Then like she had all those years ago with a sense of deja-vu she had knocked an arrow as the moon was high in the sky, and fired. Her arrow shooting through the air to slam into the sentry who died with a strangled gurgle as blood ran out of their neck spraying across the grassy floor below. That was when the others came out ,and she watched. Wondering why all those years ago she had been so afraid of these people, afraid of spilling their blood, of taking a life. She had been afraid all those years ago of what it would do to her if she had to take a life and now? She didn’t even care about these people’s lives, people who stole from others and killed others in turn shouldn’t be confused if they too ended up dead, that was how she saw things through those eyes who had seen the death of thousands on a battlefield. Who had seen these people die horrible deaths without much stopping them, that was what was going through her mind at this point, and she didn’t really care that for the most part these people had done no wrong, instead? What she did was she had knocked another arrow, took aim and fired. Taking out another one of the individuals who had caused problems for those who lived in the general area.
Then she shot another arrow and another, firing them so quickly that it would have seemed almost like a rain slamming into different bodies in rapid succession, which was the only hint at her talent, as she had made clean shots in the same area on almost every body even with only the light of the moon to go off of. A feat which was as much a testament to her skill, as to how lucky she was to be able to make such a shot in the first place, let alone a few multiple shots in succession at the exact same time, which made her day as she eventually was able to finish off the last of the bandits and finally began to make her way back to the town. Once she got back to where she was sleeping, she made sure to let the local magistrate know that they wouldn’t have any more trouble with the bandits that had been plaguing them. News which then quickly shot through the city as she went on with the remainder of her stay.
Clan Head Period: After she got back from her wanderings after she had turned 15 she had ended up taking over the position as clan head as her father at the time had grown too old to take the position, and with only a daughter and no sons to show for himself she ended up being the one who took leadership of the clan during this period. It was an unexpected event for her, because she had felt her father was strong, almost considered someone who probably would never willingly step down from his position on anything below death itself taking the position from him, and yet? One night in the middle of june he told her he was stepping down and that she would be the next clan head of the date family. The entire thought of that though was something that confused her, she wondered more importantly if she would be able to fill the position that was being left there, if she as a girl would be able to hold sway over the men in her family who thought that men seemed to be superior to that of a female. Those thoughts plagued her mind deep into the night , and she got very little sleep for the next week until she was able to finally step up to take the position.
People surprisingly didn’t object though even with her status as the wandering marksman and her fame? She had assumed there would be some nay-sayers in the group, people that thought she wasn’t worth the time and effort that was being put into the family, or people who thought that they could run the family better then her. Yet, there wasn’t a single soul which argued with her fathers decision to hand the family over to her, even at such an early age as 15, and that? Well that notion itself was something that filled her with pride, it made her want to do better for her family than she was doing in previous years, she was wanting to take the date clan to the very heights of power, and fame even though she had no clue how to do it, nor did she have any knowledge about how to run a clan, and yet that wasn’t going to stop her, she would figure it out, and that was why during this period? She spent a lot of time learning about the politics between clans and relationships between the imperial family and the clans that dotted the entirety of japan at that point in time.
Instead she made it so her family was able to enter what would be known as a favored position among the imperial family while forging strong alliances with the remainder of the individuals who seemed to hold power in the world of japan in that particular era, even though all these different alliances where made in secret without individuals who would pry and find ways to use it against her, and as she built her empire brick by brick it seemed that fate had plans for her, even as she wondered how life would be as a clan head, or how she would be if someone managed to beat her in archery, most of those thoughts seemed to run through her head at a single point in time.
Spiritual Awakening Period:
On her 17th birthday everything seemed to change, or atleast she thought she was going crazy. As she woke up in the early morning before anyone else had woken up to go and do her training she had begun to notice strange creatures roaming the world around her, creatures which seemed to be of different origins origins that at the time made her believe she had somehow passed into the realm of the gods and other divine or satanic creatures, even further she began to understand the energy in the world around her in a way that previously she hadn’t been able to understand, the world blossomed and opened up to her in fantastic ways , and even as she saw them it scared her so much, to think about the fact that she might not be alone, that humanity might just be the bottom rung on another even larger foodchain that had yet to be discovered yet? It was that very notion that send her tumbling back to her room, to where she would have shut the screen panel and curled back up under her blanket while she rested on the floor. She didn’t know what to think about these monsters, they seemed so cruel so . . honestly scary that she didn’t even want to go outside , and actually didn’t go outside for the time being, she just stayed in her room for the most part.
Then she began to notice the powers that had begun to blossom in her body, powers that she couldn’t explain, that she couldn’t pin-point or pin down, and these powers seemed to scare her, because she didn’t understand them, such as when she began to draw energy from the air or when she watched that energy take shape in the palm of her handle, settling there in a way that felt natural and for the most part right to her. She hadn’t even understood what had happened, but she had understood that whatever had taken place? Was something which now was changing her in more ways than what she previously had been able to understand or comprehend. She had wanted to get stronger for so long, and now had she been blessed by one of the deity’s or was it that she had been cursed and just now was getting the afteraffects of it? She honestly didn’t know, and didn’t know for the next few weeks that passed after she had been
Instead of understanding it, her powers continued to grow and she begun to figure out that there was more to her powers than just the energy that was running through her veins, or the abilities she gained from it to see things that had become out of the ordinary. Instead she revelled in it, the knowledge that what she was seeing was something that was entirely different from the norm, something so drastically different that it had made her want to dig through the world itself to eventually find out what was making everything tick, the notion that beings out there existed that were more then the mere mortals that seemed to think that they had the strength to rule anything and everything in the world around them . Laughably naive humans which she didn’t even waste the time to tell the time of day to anymore, she had far more important matters to attend to than to focus on them or to answer their stupid questions, instead she focused more on trying to figure out just what she had become, what it meant to be what she was, and most importantly she wanted answers about what she could do with this power,
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