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The Kagetai Home

Name: Tenshou Joketsu (aka:Tenshou no Shinda)
Birthdate: November 13th, 1844
Height: 5'3"
Weight: 112lbs

Appearance:

Joketsu is whipcord thin, covered with wiry muscle. She always looks half starved. At first glance, she’s easily mistaken for a boy, albeit a very delicately built boy, and she plays up on this, dressing in men’s clothing and often speaking like a man. Her hair is startling, prematurely white, and she wears it long in a high pony tail. Her eyes are very dark golden brown, a color that should be deep and warm…instead, disregarding a few exceptions, they are very cold and flat; the eyes of a killer. She almost always wears a kimono and hakama, normally black and white or red and white.

Background:

No one knows Joketsu’s true name. The one that everyone knows her by, she gave herself.
Until the age of 12, Joketsu lived in a small rural farming community in the Kyoto area. Her parents were outcasts—her mother a prostitute, her father a failed soldier. Her mother, despite her spotty past, was still a good woman, and she gave little Joketsu a few short years of kindness and love before she died under rather suspicious circumstances. She had been frail since her daughter’s birth. Joketsu’s father was a very bitter, hard man who enjoyed to drink a little too much and was abusive. It’s quite likely that he beat his wife to death, and it was common knowledge that he gave his daughter much the same, or perhaps even worse. Shortly after Joketsu’s 12th birthday, her father was killed, run into the ground by a heavy cart while he was laying drunk in the street. Several members of the community, seizing a golden opportunity to acquire land and a decent house, beat Joketsu within an inch of her life and left her for dead in a field. This is most likely the event that caused her hair to go white.

Shortly afterwards, the village burned to the ground. Very few survived, none of them members of the party that had seized Joketsu’s property. Joketsu, firmly convinced that she was weak and that was why she had lost her home, cut off her hair and re-entered the world as a boy as soon as she was capable of walking again. In Kyoto, she spent several months observing the various dojos until she had singled out one, which she felt was the strongest. She presented herself at the door and quickly learned everything that the master had to teach her, showing a natural aptitude for sword work and stealth. After she was certain there was nothing left to learn, she dissappeared once again to perfect her own style: Akumatenshouryuu, a mixture of ninja skills, sword work, and other rather unprecedented weapons. She quickly rose to be considered as a master of both katana and tessen.

In 1864, she returned to Kyoto, drawn by the first murmurs of conflict. Once again, she carefully observed, and then chose the Shinsen Gumi as the strongest group. However, when she presented herself to them, they first laughed at her because of her small size, then chased her away when they discovered that she was a woman. Saitou, however, had heard a few rumors about her, and saw the potential, so approached her later and asked her to join the Kagetai as a spy. Joketsu rapidly adopted the Shinsen Gumi as her only family, though almost none of the members knew her at all. After watching them from afar, she also developed a certain fondness for Tokio and Jinko, which caused her to come out of hiding to meet them in person.

She survived the Bakamatsu without serious injury, though she was wounded several times in pursuit of her duty, and killed quite a few. Afterwards, she simply disappeared once more, her whereabouts known only to Saitou…and possibly his wife.

Personality:

Joketsu is no prize. Unpleasant at best, downright poisonous at worst, there’s little wonder why she spends most of her time alone. She rarely has a facial expression that is not tinged with cold cynicism, sarcasm, or self-deprecation, though once in a great while (when she is feeling comfortable or believes that no one is watching), she will smile and it is possible to see the very young, happy girl that she once was.

She is highly intelligent and aware of it, and is firmly convinced of the stupidity of people in general, the male sex in particular, though there are, of course, exceptions.

Those that know her are well aware that her sharp tongue and general nastiness are just a cover for what she believes to be her “weak” side. When watching her during her more animated moments, people often experience an odd feeling, like she is slightly out of focus, or that they are actually seeing to two people; one, the cold outer warrior, and the other a gentler side that hides quite effectively, wincing at the outer attitude. She has a decided tendency to be a lone wolf, but to her friends, she is warm, caring, understanding, gentle, and fanatically loyal.

Likes:

Sweets, music, art, fighting, weapons, the night, children (though she’s not quite sure what to do with them,) cooking (she wields a mean wok :D ) and playing head games with idiots.

Dislikes:

Drinking, enclosed spaces (she’s extremely claustrophobic, but is focused enough to control it…under most circumstances), women’s clothing, cowards, hypocrites, and morons.

Rivals:

Though she never personally clashed with him, she hates Himura Kenshin for dealing death to so many members of her ‘family.’ By associations, she intensely dislikes the Kenshin Gumi as well. Also, she hated Udo Jinei, and was trying to find him so that she could kill him but he finished the job himself, first.

Current Sketch:

Calling herself Kagemusha Himitsu, she now owns a small art business which is located only a few streets over from the Aka Beko. She secretly collects weapons, and has quite a few now. Notably, she can use them all with proficiency. For the fun of it, she spies a great deal on her own, as well as performing any odd jobs that Saitou sends her way. Saitou is the only former member of the Shinsen Gumi that she still has any kind of direct contact with. For the sake of spying on the Kenshin Gumi, she will occasionally wear women’s clothing and do a turn as a waitress at the Aka Beko. She also watches the Kagetai members with a great deal of delight, though she would deny it if asked, and rarely spends a moment of her day without observing one of them, though she refuses to intrude upon them for any reason. She almost makes a game of it, watching them, often in plain sight, just to see if any of them might recognize her for who and what she is. None have, yet.