i hate myself so let's DO THIS
Name: Yamagishi Senri 山岸千里
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Ability: The power to banish earthly desires; that is, Senri has the power to erase from any being their material wants, and see things from a different perspective. It seems to be powerless at times, but depending on the situation, could be quite useful. To be more detailed, it operates either on a surface level (through speech) or on a low-level (through phantasmic means).
Occupation: Works over at the Human Village's teahouse, basically he helps make and serve tea there. He is a huge tea fanatic and greatly enjoys the time he spends working there, and it does help that he gets to chat with the locals who frequent the place about... things in general!
Appearance: Senri is fairly short, somewhere around five foot six, and has an unusually lithe figure for a guy. One could say that he was almost considered as born a girl but after a few months they found out he was a boy! Crazy. As a result, his body is extremely delicate and at times can be pretty soft; therefore it is fairly frail, and one should be careful not to knock him around and about (that also means he can't take hits very well). He has very neatly kept silver hair, it would be long but it was tied into twintails, which are kept in place by a small red ribbon on each side. He is often seen wearing a very distinctive
furisode kimono (it is a kimono with very long, flowing sleeves
like this picture) which is black in color, and has a very minimalistic floral motif, mostly consisting of sakura blossoms in the corner. The same motif can be seen on the sleeves. One does not see what kind of footwear Senri wears, leading to confusion as to what kind of geta he wears due to the distinctive clatter he makes whenever he walks. Some people say that he wears a tengu's one-tooth geta, but generally that is considered an outrageous claim as that would have to make Senri's balance skills beyond godlike for a human to both deliver tea AND walk around in tengu's one-tooth geta. He looks basically like an incredibly dainty girl.
Personality: Senri is the kind of person who tries to be compassionate to those around him, except if they are obviously "bad people," which usually tends to consist of people Senri find unruly or fall under his definition of unjust. What is his definiton of unjust? Well, the typical definition you hear in the stories, one would suppose; the kind who would kidnap your girlfriend and make you travel a bazillion long distances only to magic her away to another place. He's quite caring and very empathetic towards their needs but if he can't cater to them, he'll at least try to hear them out and offer to be a comforting hand. His parents were quite strict about that, anyway - always convincing him that his appearance was to help him travel the path of being a "good person" but Senri has never understood that yet. He also really likes tea. Like, he really really likes tea. Outside of the compassionate aspect, he's in some ways a pretty talkative person if you bother to approach him at all and bug him about something - he'll only shoo you away if he's busy but he will still most likely return to your attention. In other words, he's kind of like the school nurse in most stereotypical animu that have them, only less one-dimensional and more dynamic as a character.
Background: Senri's name was chosen because it literally meant 1000 li, signifying that he'd be able to go a long way in life. Well, that's what Senri's dad said, anyway. The name actually came from his mother who encountered a strange spirit before she gave birth to Senri, or rather, a strange mountain cat who had uttered some strange things to her. Most people who first read Senri's name mistakenly pronounce his name as
Chisato, because it uses the same kanji, but is incorrect. He has an older sister by the name of Aika, who acted as a caretaker towards Senri which influenced the way he lived a little bit. Aika had already been trained under their mother and father in the way of the naginata, so she served as somewhat of a strong protectorate figure for the young Senri. Soon, when Senri had turned ten or eleven years old (he doesn't remember), his parents decided to have him take up the art of the katana. Aika was against it, saying he was much too young to be able to handle a blade like that, but the mother said it would be fine. They had him work with a bokken first, and had him trained similarly to one studying general kendo, and after the boy had learned the fundamentals after one or two months, they handed him one of their family heirloom blades.
The heirloom blade in particular seemed not to be a katana at all, to Aika's horror, but a terribly heavy
ootachi, or rather, terribly heavy at the time, since Senri was still incredibly young. He struggled to actually lift it and that's when the dad decided to increase his strength through basic martial arts training... It wasn't actually for practical martial arts, rather to increase the boy's arm strength, endurance, and balance. It wasn't very intense at all, which relieved Aika and the mother. It's worth noting that the father worked as a blacksmith and the mother was... Usually out most of the time, only the dad knew where she was at any given time and always said "she was out on business." Senri learned to appreciate tea when he was about thirteen years old, as he would always drink tea after a strenuous time of training, and learned to love the drink so much that when he was older, he wanted to work at the teahouse in the Human Village, so he worked there. Of course, at that time, he was a lot stronger and could actually lift his ootachi without too much difficulty. While the training did help him with his inner strength, his body still wasn't well-built to withstand physical hits, which is why the dad tried not to make training too intense. But it was still a lot for Senri.
Eventually, Senri learned his origins; his name was actually based off the true form of his mother, an actual
senri, or the highest form of
bakeneko (化け猫) who fell in love with his father and instead of outright killing him by stealing all of his life, only did it incrementally so that they could continue living together. Senri's mother was always out because she was hunting, or fraternizing with her fellow bakeneko. But that left another question - how was Senri actually /born/, then? After all, his mother was a bakeneko, so that left a big question mark in his head as to how he was born. After some snooping around, Aika explained to him that she was adopted, and you were the result of some phenomena similar to a "magicked" birth, that is, his mother and his dad worked together to have another woman bear Senri, explaining his human roots. Basically similar to surrogate mother but not quite.
Presently, Senri works at the human village teahouse and always keeps his ootachi on at all times in case of dire emergencies. Rarely does he actually go out and fight youkai unless they appear in the village to threaten those who cannot defend themselves. Else he just helps them.
Other:
Weapon妙墨宮大太刀 (Myouzumiguu Ootachi)
referenceTotal Length: 194.0cm
Blade Length: 144.0cm
Guard Length: 7.0cm
This particular blade is fairly non-descript, it does not have any elaborate markings or motifs on it, however, the steel alloys used in making this particular weapon are quite distinctly special, because they can resist climate change. It is unknown how exactly this weapon was made, though it's rumoured to be a gift to Senri's father's ancestors, thus it became passed down like a family heirloom. It is always kept wrapped around in red bandages, with a tied rope around it to keep it secure (think
Sagara Sanosuke from Rurouni Kenshin) which he holds around. He manages to do this while still serving tea, which is a pretty interesting note.
StyleSenri is more defensively oriented, using the weight of his opponent's attacks to his own advantage, since his ootachi is incredibly heavy, if he forces back the opponent's attack he will gain momentum and be able to retaliate with more ease than if he started with his own offensive. He is more focused on surviving due to his frail build, which further drives his defensive strategy. He also tries to minimize the amount of blood shed, always using the flat of his blade to attack rather than the edge or the tip of the blade. Due to the weight of the weapon, it can still do considerate amounts of damage.
