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The Kagetai Home

Name: Takeda Shinobu
Birthdate: April 13, 1855
Height: 5'2
Weight: 110lbs.


Appearance:

Takeda Shinobu's family is lost in the past glories of their clan and as such she often opts for the trappings of it. Her sleek black hair trails the floors despite the hair comb and pins that keep it up. When she is outside it is worn over her shoulder to keep it off the ground. Her clothes come in layers. No matter the weather outside, if she is in public she is wearing several layers of yukata to kimono, beneath it all she opts for a little rebellion in the form of a light hakema. Her kimono are always elaborate and voluminous so she can hide the Colts she wears close to her body. In keeping with the old traditions, her hands are never seen much outside her sleeves but when they do make an appearance it is seen that her fingers are often ink stained and usually bandaged slightly. Her face, when not obscured by a fan or a sleeve, is pleasantly beautiful and pale. Her eyebrows are plucked and her eyelashes are long. Her brown eyes themselves are usually quite expressive but only express what she wishes. She is of slightly above average height with a long, lithe body that is soft by the standards of the company she keeps.

Background:

Takeda Shinobu was born in the wrong place and time. The direct descendent of daimyo Takeda Shingen and the youngest niece of the head of the remnants of the Takeda clan, she is a very proud and somewhat vain girl. Outwardly she appears very shy and possessed of a youthful grace which often turns into hesitance in her interactions with others. This is only one of several personas she has cultivated on her uncle's request since he installed her in the imperial court before the onset of the Bakumatsu as a court artist and poet.

She lost her father, Nobuzane, in battle but hardly felt the loss because she hardly knew him. His head was taken when she was only eight and he had never shown much interest in the girl anyway. It was her mother whom she most identified with as a youngster and it was her mother who began her instruction in the arts. Still, her mother was distant from her in a dreaming way. Shinobu always tried to pierce her mother's cloud of indifference to find her love. When the lady wasted away soon after her father's death Shinobu was left with an inner struggle concerning her mother's affections. Her dead husdand was preferable to her living daughter?

The relations she had with her two older brothers, Tyounan and Jinan, were often little more than cordial and usually only slightly less than formal. She became the most fond of her second brother, Jinan, when he gave her a coat patterned with the Takeda's old sakura mon. Her closest relationship was in the imperial court with the cherry tree outside her window… It was, she said, her muse.

She spent her young life in the court perfecting her art and poetry skill but honing her almond eyes to notice every minute detail that passed under her keen scrutiny. Her empathic talents too were honed so that she might read others' ki and motivations. In this way she became one of Matsudaira Katamori's most valued spies. With the vital intelligence and profiles she compiled several skirmishes with the Ishin Shishi were turned to victory. Shinobu was instructed in medicine in court by representatives of her family's allies, the Matsudaira, should the fighting eventually come into her way. Additionally it was attempted to grant her the learning of martial arts, but she was a poor learner better accustomed to brushes than a tanto.So she could defend herself she was privately trained outside of Kyoto with two Colt revolvers. She wears wrist braces to properly shoot them because their kick is so formidable, but more and more she is learning to channel the kick into an energy source.

Matsudaira Katamori was not one to let a resource go aside, and with the unnecessary permission of her uncle, began secretly sending Shinsengumi operatives to collect information from Shinobu. Shinobu first met Kagetai operatives when Saitou Hajime, the captain of the third unit, was let in on this caged source of information. The girl never asked them questions but her piercing gaze would follow every move made from above the sleeve of one of her elaborately dyed and embroidered kimono. It is old protocol for a lady to conceal her face and her family was stuck in the past glory of the Takeda.

Secretly Shinobu wished she could travel as freely as the spies sent to her. For some time they were the subject of her brushes. Her best piece was of one of the Kagetai in her cherry tree. Because of the nature of the medium only she and those who knew what to look for could make out the image and only the Kagetai would have been able to read the apparent body language captured in ink and tell who it was.

However, in 1868, no amount of information she compiled would save her family and brothers from crushing defeat. Her clan, based in Kofu, was broken and in hopeless debt to the merchants in the area. The healthy flow of money to Takeda Shinobu, which she desperately needed to keep up appearances in Kyoto, came to an abrupt end. Her uncle and her two brothers were lost in the fighting and her aunt refused all contact with her, blaming Shinobu in part for the dramatic loss. She had to leave the court and sent out desperate messages to any allies still left for help. She was sure she could be of use to somebody, though she was unsure at first in what way.

It was under these circumstances that she received a message, while sitting in the shade of her beloved cherry tree, from Saitou Hajime stating that as long as her lines of information could remain effective he would find her useful. Utterly alone and desperate for money to keep her life somewhat normal Takeda Shinobu came to realize from the letter that her best bet for survival lay in the espionage she had cultivated for years in Kyoto. Armed with all the blackmail her uncle and Matsudaira Katamori never had a chance to use Shinobu began to accrue favors, promises, protection, and a place to live. From there she created the persona, Sakura, after her beloved muse, and started again a more separated double life.

Personality:

Takeda Shinobu has several personas she uses. The two most often seen are her public face and her Sakura face. Publicly Shinobu is an incredibly shy girl with an unabashed curiosity of the things around her. She is 'open' and the very picture of a lady. She knows when to laugh and when to faint dead away.

Sakura is her business mode. Her eyes express disdain, dread, understanding as she needs. She lets nothing go without a price and reads the ki and intentions of her clients with a sharply discerning eye. Her ability to read people has saved her life and others on numerous occasions. On coaxing from her very few friends, Shinobu will be herself. She is very philosophical and taken with nature she is also greatly influenced by the images around her. She is not really very open minded but she is more likely to be convinced to think more broadly in this state. In many ways Shinobu is a typical girl with many of the security problems most people have. Her worth, as she sees it, is mainly in her utility and this makes her sad. She wants to live a life without worrying about what she needs to know, a life without keeping constantly ahead of the game. Shinobu always carries the air of dreaminess her mother projected but with a more underlying sadness.

Likes:

Her cherry tree, painting, writing, reading, matching wits with others, psychoanalyzing friend and foe, shopping. Secretly she likes playing around with her guns.

Dislikes:

The Ishin Shishi, getting dirty, rudeness, surprises, traitors.

Rivals:

Other information brokers.

Current Sketch:

Takeda Shinobu lives in an affluent area of Kyoto where she receives visitors and works on her artwork. 'For money' she sells her works and has patients who receive some medical care from her. On the other hand, she keeps a top room in one of the inns in the more disreputable areas of Kyoto where she conducts the business that really keeps her lifestyle financed. When she can she tries to get away and see the people of the Kagetai, because more and more they fill the void she's always had in her heart where a family should have been. She has also, rather recently, been wrestling with the necessary fact that she is in her twenties and still unmarried.