Shinji Yakurai

Name: Shinji Yakurai
Nickname:
Age: 24
Gender: Male
Height: 6’0”
Weight: 170 lb
Appearance: Shinji has rather smooth and slightly tanned skin that contrasts well to his rather dark hair. He has a tendency to not brush his hair, but it always seems to lie flat on his head rather well, whether he bothers or not. He is of rather average stature in build, easily passing for a civilian. His waist is just a bit thinner than one might expect given the size of the rest of his body, but it is something that it hardly noticeable. Shinji’s eyes are many shades of blue from steel-blue being the main color, and deep saturated shades of sapphire accent them in a way that has been entrancing women for his entire life. Ladies beware.

Shinji has a dragon tattoo spread across his back in great detail, beautifully drawn in fantastic Western style, and the dragon’s tail moves down his left arm, wrapping around it where the tip ends in his palm. The man gained this tattoo as a commemoration for surviving his first gladiator games and gaining eligibility for the freedom games. It opens its maw and breathes fire over the sealing symbol imprinted on his back by the prison that holds him. A symbol that he will someday will watch the hierarchy burn. He has several raised scars from beatings that are used by the tattoo to make it look as if the dragon has its own three-dimensional muscles rippling in power.

Shinji tends toward more casual clothing than is typical to his clan, preferring open shirts with white undershirts beneath and long dark jean or cloth trousers. He tends toward boots over shoes or sandals unlike many Samurai because he thinks it looks tacky, preferring the boot approach because, in his opinion, it brings his style together better. He tends toward rather serious expressions, even when joking, which he rarely does, which makes it doubly hard to tell when Shinji is threatening one’s life in jest or in seriousness.

Village: Shimogakure
Character Rank: Samurai. Future Warlord and Shogun in due time.
Character Tier: S-3
Clan: Yakurai
Personality: “Serious” would be an understatement when attempting to describe the rather unique personality of Shinji. He attempts to have fun, even if it is in limited doses and only with those he trusts – which are few. At one point good-hearted, he still sees himself to be this way. But in today’s society and with the occurences of his life thus far, including the Samurai war prison, he has become a cynic, a critic of the system of the village, and wishes to change it – while at the same time, gaining retribution for his wrongful punishment. His goals are anything but noble, and he, in fact, understands this – but he sees it to be a necessary evil.

As a member of his clan, as almost all others, Shinji values power and the act of proving one’s power – or combat. Shinji has been known to fight and kill over little more than pride, but in recent years, he had become something of an enigma in his clan, becoming rather conscious of the clan’s dwindling numbers. That was, of course, before he was so wrongfully imprisoned, where he became angry, in a corruptive sort of way. He is not evil, but he is harsh, and has a difficult time with empathy. Still, he has it for a select few, and those, in their times of danger, become the most well-protected beings on the planet, and security is something about which they need not worry.

Slow to trust and even slower to betray, loyalty is a trait that Shinji values almost as highly as power. Shinji considers himself to be loyal to his clan and to the people of Shimogakure, but feels betrayed by its government and military system – in that way, he seeks to punish them for their misguided practices and lack of loyalty. Pride is something blatantly pervasive in his entire demeanor in almost every situation, but woe unto the individual who professes such lies to Shinji. Shinji finds it easier to bond with the female gender, as he sees males as his adversaries in the same way a wild animal must assert his dominance over another male. In his eyes, there is an alpha in every scenario. Still, a small number of men have wriggled their way through Shinji’s defenses. It is not that Shinji has a hard time finding a male likable – he just finds it hard to open up to them, because he’d be damned if he showed another male weakness.

Character History: From a very young age, Shinji was trained to fight, to the most extremes of circumstances. His parents watched his diet, cutting out all bad sugars, raising him on what was almost nothing more than the nutrients boiled down to their purest of forms. It was a common practice in the Yakurai clan, and his parents were no different. Shinji’s parents were both powerful figures in the clan and bore Shinji himself in almost a business-like fashion, as they each knew that the other was strong, and knew their best hope of keeping their own legacies alive was to birth children together. As was a common practice in the Yakurai Clan at the given time.

Shinji’s toddler years were dominated by nearly brainwashing him to love toys that featured weapons he may use – it was a common superstition that a child’s spirit weapons could be influenced by the toys they played with and the things they found fascinating as a child. That said, it took little brainwashing on Shinji’s parents’ part. He spent much time playing with two toys that his parents considered represented the most powerful types of spirit weapons and abilities. Both being users of Vollstandig, this was something kept in mind by his parents when they chose toys for him, as they had attempted to breed even the most powerful of abilities into Shinji.

Once he was old enough to walk with some level of control, Shinji had immediately begun lessons in footwork. His parents believed, and were right in their belief, that footwork was the most important trait to any combat ever, whether it be ranged, hand-to-hand, or with handheld weapons. From the end of his toddler days to about 11 years old, Shinji practiced footwork for eight hours per day, day in and day out, studying scholastics for four more, as it was well recognized that education was just as important in an individual’s ability to fulfill their potential in power. It was the least fun part of his life.

It was not long however, before Shinji then graduated to his real training. He was taught to call upon his Spirit Weapons with two rings given to him by each of his parents, as his first Quincy Artifacts. The one given to him by his mother became his bow, and the one given to him by his father became his blade. He was taught archery first, it being what was supposed to be the bread and butter of his clan, resorting to the blade a bit less often. During this time, Shinji’s company was restricted to his training and to the children with equal potential shown as him. His parents took no chances in failing in any way to provide him every opportunity to be powerful.

At age 16, Shinji was entered into the Yakurai clan’s military forces, and took his first life in his first battle, and a celebration ceremony was held as a result of it. It sickened him. His parents had waited longer to enter him than was traditional because they wanted perfection from him before he was put in highly stressful situations where he could likely begin to build bad habits that, against a powerful enough opponent, would easily be exploited – and they could not lose their chance at their prize fighter. Over time, Shinji killed more and more foes, and by age 18, had a body count in the hundreds, becoming known around the clan and Shimogakure as The Reaper, as wounds he inflicted never healed.

It was during this time that Shinji also met his first, and so far, only mate; Meyona. Meyona Yakurai was a beautiful specimen of flawless and perfect physical characteristics; more than enough to melt the average man, and for Shinji, it was something real – not forced or arranged like nearly every other Yakurai couple, and it infuriated his parents. Still, in their old age, and Shinji in his prime, they could not restrict Shinji from seeing Meyona, even though he obeyed them in nearly every other area without question. He absolutely refused to oblige their pleas to find someone else, someone who had been proven to be capable of bearing children – twins even. Meyona had yet to have children, but that did not matter to Shinji, despite how important it was becoming to most other members of the clan.

At age 18, Shinji went on a special mission, this one as a part of the Shimogakure forces. In his clan it was considered dishonorable to execute prisoners without the right to defend themselves in battle, so when Shinji’s commanding officer ordered him to do just that, and execute someone, Shinji refused. More powerful than his commanding officer, Shinji freed the other man, the one he was supposed to execute, gave him a weapon, and allowed him to stand his ground. It was a long, long battle, and eventually the man began to run. By this time, Shinji was nearly out of chakra, so as he went to follow the man, the rest of his comrades pounced on Shinji, arresting him for treason, as the man had critical information to the life of the Shogun.

Shinji went to a gulag-style prison reserved for a singular purpose – enemies of the state. It was not a prison that the average citizen knew of, and it was a prison where there was no escape. The prison was used for slave labor while prisoners were waiting for execution, and we beaten quite often. Each incoming inmate was branded with a seal that suppressed their powers to a similar point to the average citizen. The prison itself was reserved only for those who were sentenced to death, and preferred execution method was death by gladiator games. Though the practices were shady, the Shimogakure government drew huge amounts of revenue from betting and tickets to the gladiator game, but there came a point where prisoners stopped fighting for their lives, knowing that everyone, at some point, died. That was why they created the ultimate prize for the tournament; freedom.

Shinji survived 10 gladiatorial combat battles before becoming eligible for the freedom games. After the 10th battle, after his victory, another inmate spent over 72 straight hours printing Shinji’s dragon tattoo on his back, and Shinji began to identify with it on a spiritual level. Six months passed he had begun to accept the fact that the prison was all he would ever know, and his Quincy artifact switched from the rings given to him by his parents to the dragon tattoo and the seal imprinted inside it. We begin Shinji Yakurai’s story of epic proportions on the final bout standing between Shinji and his freedom.

Approved