[hider=Lieutenant Yuudaina] [center] [IMG]http://i66.tinypic.com/9jgew7.png[/IMG] [/center] [center][h3][I]YUUSHUU YUUDAINA[/I][/h3][/center] [indent] [B]| B I R T H N A M E: |[/B] [INDENT]Yūshū Yūdaina. That's family name first, folks.[/INDENT] [B]| N I C K N A M E ( S ): |[/B] [INDENT]Yuushuu, Yuudaina, or Yuushuu Yuudaina. He tends to replace the macrons with two "u"s, as they just complicate things a lot of the time.[/INDENT] [B]| E P I T H E T: |[/B] [INDENT][INDENT]"Noble" to those who think highly of him, "Softie" to those who... don't.[/INDENT][/INDENT] [B]| R A C E: |[/B] [INDENT][INDENT]Human[/INDENT][/INDENT] [B]| A G E: |[/B] [INDENT][INDENT]27[/INDENT][/INDENT] [B]| F U N C T I O N: |[/B] [INDENT][INDENT]Marine Lieutenant, serving the 2nd Patrol Unit as Master-at-Arms, and in combat as a combination of martial artist, swordsman, and sniper all at once due to his weapon of choice.[/INDENT][/INDENT] [B]| A P P E A R A N C E: |[/B] [INDENT][INDENT]The image provided is about accurate to his appearance, though he tends to appear more formally dressed and a touch more tanned, particularly from his recent time in the New World. He is about 208 cm tall and weighs 122 kgs - that's 6'10" and 265 lbs - bearing bright blue eyes and dark tousled hair, and when not rolled up, his shirt sleeves stop just above his elbows. Covering most of his forearms out of combat are a pair of grey metal gauntlets, replete with spikes on each knuckle, constituting the only visible item on him that isn't simply clothing. The back of his shirt has the kanji for "Justice" emblazoned on the back in light blue, and whilst he possesses an officer's coat, it is rarely worn, as he finds that it usually just gets in the way more than anything.[/INDENT][/INDENT] [B]| P E R S O N A L I T Y: |[/B] [INDENT][INDENT]Despite being born into a Noble family, Yuudaina's personality is heavily drawn from his time spent in the Marines. He values order and calm above most other traits, and is extremely good at remaining focused and rational in high-stress situations, a definite contributor to his rapid rise through the ranks of the Marines. Naturally, he is also a firm believer in the concept of Justice, though in his case, he stands by the optimistic notion that said Justice should only be Absolute if the target has done something irredeemably evil, such as raping or murdering an innocent living being; in these cases, he will often push to kill the target as quickly as possible, or at least to subdue them for imprisonment and ideally execution. However, if the point of no return has not been crossed, he may well choose to let a pirate go free if they show signs of goodness in their actions, e.g. having redirected money stolen from a bad person toward a more charitable purpose, though in many cases he will try to urge them to leave the piratical lifestyle before it's too late for them to turn back. Still, he has found such cases to be few and far between, and his general dislike of pirates is quite justifiable given what he's seen of their sort. As far as working under the World Government goes, he is keen to make a good impression on his superiors, and more importantly to set a good example for his equals and subordinates, and is typically the first into a fight and the last out, not to mention his propensity to volunteer himself for any tasks that require the manpower and lecture others in their work if it seems to be sub-par.[/INDENT][/INDENT] [B]| A B I L I T I E S: |[/B] [INDENT][INDENT] [hider=Distort] Yuudaina has a practical streak a mile wide, and consequently considers the risks of consuming a Devil Fruit to outweigh the benefits, short of the most powerful and effective varieties. By contrast, he bears a somewhat unique weapon named Distort - created as a greatly oversized and well-crafted Marine cutlass, it has subsequently been fed the [url=http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/Buki_Buki_no_Mi]Arms-Arms Fruit,[/url] allowing it to transform into practically any weapon Yuudaina desires, be it blade, gun, or rocket launcher, and he has substantial practice in using most of its possible forms, meaning he is at least competent in their use, if not an expert. He has even "taught" the sword to be capable of splitting into two smaller (but still larger than usual) weapons, further diversifying the possible methods by which he can attack, and generally making him very difficult to predict in a fight, when he cannot simply beat people up with his gauntlets to claim victory (and as a highly-skilled boxer, amongst other unarmed combat styles, this is not so rare as one might think). Distort's most common forms are as follows: -Gauntlets, the standard form out of combat and when Yuudaina isn't trying so hard, essentially providing a boost to his boxing skill. Slight modifications can increase the size of the fists themselves as well as the spikes on each knuckle. Distort is rarely used singularly in this form, but the resulting gauntlet grows to quite a substantial size when it is, with large spikes across the whole fist. -Cutlass, Distort's original form, a fairly long and wide curved blade not quite as tall as Yuudaina himself. When split in two, their size is perhaps 1.5x that of a usual Marine cutlass blade, and this form is preferred for dueling unarmoured opponents. Incidentally, other types of sword and knife have relatively similar statistics, scaled to the corresponding blade type's usual statistics, relatively shorter or longer than the basic cutlass form as appropriate. -Hammer, an oversized metal-headed polearm, either a war hammer with a spike on one side of the head, or a sledgehammer-esque maul - unwieldy, but very good at breaking things, in particular piercing armour or dealing blunt force damage through it. Splitting Distort provides two hammers of either variety, with shafts about twice the length of a standard mace. -Rifles, the typical ranged form of Distort, a pair of sniper's rifles with quite significant anti-personnel power to them. As one weapon, the rifle and bullet caliber is much larger, providing a proportionately stronger attack. -Cannons, a pair of hand cannons with more direct strength than the rifles, plus a certain degree of explosive splash damage, but also shorter range and somewhat less accuracy. The merged form is just a regular, though quite large, cannon. -Machine guns, a pair of rapid-firing MMGs intended to either focus a lot of suppressive fire against one target, or the rarely-desired purpose of mowing down hordes of foes at a time. -Rotary gatling cannon, to some extent the single form of the above machine guns. With an extremely rapid rate of fire, and quite a lot of force behind each bullet as well, it has much the same function as the machine guns in question. -Rocket launcher, for when he really needs something to die violently right now. It does about what you'd expect a rocket launcher to do. This does not have a split version, though it does have a number of optional rocket types for different purposes, such as boosting projectile speed or focusing explosive force into a smaller area, and most notably the capacity to lock on to and home in on a specified target by sacrificing a portion of the explosive payload. To wit, the nature of the Arms-Arms Fruit normally allows a human user to remain unharmed by their own weapon's action, including explosions, whilst leaving human portions of their body vulnerable even to their own weapons. However, due to the fruit's current consumer already being a weapon, any material separated from Distort regathers to it with each transformation, be it projectiles fired or shards of a blade, making it shockingly difficult to destroy for a Paramecia "user" without specialised equipment or abilities, or else by simply vaporising the whole thing. Under certain circumstances, this can also allow Yuudaina to perform a sort of sneak attack, whereby previously-fired bullets or bits of exploded shrapnel fly at the target a second time as they attempt to get back to Distort's mass, though any pieces "lost" beneath the ocean's surface or some other irretrievable location are not necessary for Distort to reform entirely. [/hider] [hider=Life Return] An uncommon ability learned from an uncommon source within the World Government, Life Return is the ability for Yuudaina to control every part of his body down to minute levels; whilst his main goal with it at the moment is to figure out a way to ensure his own longevity by becoming a skilled enough user, it doubles as a way to further alter his fighting style, be it by growing out and controlling his hair to help restrict his foes; limiting the pain response of his nerves to keep fighting through exhaustion; detecting poison by taste or smell alone; or by overcoming his body's usual strength limiters to greatly boost his physical abilities for a short time, at the risk of causing serious damage to his bodily structures in the process. In combination with Distort, this can achieve a variety of possibilities, such as using his hair to wield Distort with significant agility; briefly dislocating joints in an arm and stretching the muscles and ligaments, to surprise a foe by attacking them from a greater distance away than expected; controlling his breathing, the shaking of his hands, and the focal point of his vision when aiming a ranged weapon; or using the sound from a dry-fired weapon as the sonic portion of echolocation when searching for hidden enemies. To some extent, this ability even allows him to experience a degree of "bullet time" to gain a few moments to think over a high-stress situation, though there is no guarantee that decisions made in this state will be strategically optimal. Naturally, Life Return's more extreme uses require both significant concentration and a fair amount of energy to utilise properly, though to that end he also doesn't need to worry about losing his figure regardless of how much food he eats. [/hider] [/INDENT][/INDENT] [B]| S K I L L S: |[/B] [INDENT][INDENT]Up to the present day, Yuudaina has been fairly rapidly climbing the ranks of the Marines since his initiation, primarily due to his significant strength and skill, but also as a result of his ability to coordinate others both on and off the field, given the chance. Out of combat, his Life Return grants generally perfect or near-perfect senses, with hearing and vision in particular marking him out as a good scout when necessary, and like many Marines, he is a very good swimmer, though unlike some he actually enjoys it, and has taken it upon himself to do so as recreation rather than simply a survival strategy; on that note, he also tends to train his strength whenever he can, taking himself to whatever gym is available to keep up his boxing abilities and general musculature, as well as regularly writing letters back to Alicia and Francis, including the occasional short story. Finally, a strong sense of morality helps him in his role as Master-of-Arms, meting out disciplinary action as necessary and no more than that, as well as when determining whether a given pirate is worth pursuing and lecturing his fellow Marines on matters of how to act - the latter far more common in the present day than before he was relocated to G-5.[/INDENT][/INDENT] [B]| B I O G R A P H Y: |[/B] [INDENT][INDENT]For generations, the Yuushuu family have had significant holdings in Loguetown - whilst not particularly concerned with matters of populace there, their funds have been quite extraordinary, and those who have been given the opportunity to marry into the family have rarely failed to leap at the chance. Such a marriage, whilst largely love-driven, was essentially what first united Yuushuu Saidou and his wife, the woman who would eventually rename herself Kireina. Some years later, their first child was born, and named Yuushuu Yuudaina. As is often the case with one's first child, they made a few slipups here and there in raising him, leading his personality to be a bit separate from their worldviews. In this case, that might have been a good thing, for as with many Nobles, Saidou and Kireina were both rather nasty people, keeping slaves for their own personal gain and generally hoarding anything they wanted, whereas Yuudaina was a bit more in touch with others, desiring more to see what else lay in town, though not quite grasping what made his parent's slavekeeping so immoral. Such is childhood, though; the Yuushuu's next two children, Suguremashita and Sugureta, were kept on much tighter leashes and indoctrinated far more thoroughly, but Yuudaina was nonetheless in line to lead the Yuushuu household after his parents eventually passed. Yuudaina was about twelve when his parents brought in a different slave. A white-haired, purple-eyed child, one who had apparently been born into slavery, and yet who was deliberately kept separate from the other slaves, never visibly joining in with their work for the Yuushuus. At about the same time, two major events happened: Saidou and Kireina's relationship began decaying almost immediately, and the Battler first showed his face on their property, apparently linked to the new slave's role in the household. Whilst the slave didn't exactly make much of an impression on Yuudaina at the time, he was practically smitten with how powerful the Battler seemed to be when showing off his combat skills, and begged the man to teach him how to be that strong. The Battler explained that whilst he couldn't tell Yuudaina everything, he could certainly tell him some things, which might make him very powerful indeed some day. And so, for the next several years, as much of Yuudaina's free time was spent with the Battler as possible. He learned boxing in various styles from the man, amongst other forms of unarmed combat, as well as how to utilise something called Life Return, eventually allowing him to concentrate his senses and control the most minute aspects of his physique, from his hair to his muscles. He had only recently turned eighteen when he learned, overhearing an argument, precisely why his parent's relationship had been decaying for so long, why his formerly-beautiful mother had begun to... swell, was the best word for it. It turned out that the slave that had been brought in many years ago was not intended for hard labour. He was intended for use as a sex toy by Saidou, once his wife was past her best, an arguably self-fulfilling prophecy considering her reaction to his intent to cheat on her. Worse still, the Battler, who Yuudaina had looked up to for a great many years, was in on this - he was there not because Yuudaina wanted him to be, but because Saidou paid him to guard the slaves, and in particular to essentially brutalise the white-haired slave, so as to recondition his mind to better accept his eventual nature as a pervert's plaything. Naturally, he was disgusted with his father for the whole scheme, disappointed with his mother for falling into her own well of despair instead of putting a stop to it, and utterly disillusioned by the horrifying nature behind what may as well as have been his hero throughout his teenage years. He argued with his family, harsh words were said that could not be taken back, and he ultimately stormed out of the house, intent on joining the Marines as soon as possible. Coincidentally, his sister Suguremashita left the household that same day, despite her comparative youth at the time, with the described intent of becoming a merchant in some form or another, to travel the seas and become wealthy without relying on her parent's money. To his knowledge, she has been relatively successful so far, though he hasn't heard much from her other than that she visited the Yuushuu mansion recently to pick up a particular slave for her own use. Yuushuu's entrance into the Marines was at the level of Chore Boy, much like many other Marines. He did not stay at that level very long, displaying a combination of raw power and ingenuity that bumped him up to the level of Master Chief Petty Officer within three years, which he felt wasn't a bad start considering he'd largely been patrolling the weakest sea, the East Blue. Even then, his impression of piracy in general was very poor, and was set to become much worse very quickly: around that time, on a mission to help save the Gecko Islands from being ravaged by a massive pirate raid, he met a woman called Alicia Vale. She had been rendered the victim of a severed limb by the invaders, amongst various other physically-damaging indecencies, then left for dead, and she had been left in severe shock as a result, with mental trauma sure to follow; roused to great vengeance and furious anger, Yuudaina brought her into Marine care, then turned around and slaughtered as many of the pirates as he could, an event which would finally elevate him to Warrant Officer after a few months of stalling. Little did he know how much of an impact he would have on the woman's life, nor she on his. Following a severe crackdown on pirate activity in the East Blue in response to the attack, almost a year without many incidents led Yuudaina to see Alicia more and more frequently, to help her through her issues (by teaching her the Life Return ability, amongst other things, to see if she might be able to regrow the lost limb), and in time to realise that she was really quite a wonderful woman underneath the events that had scarred her so. In time, they found themselves falling in love with one another, and ultimately they married, Alicia bearing a child who would eventually be named Francis. As close as they were, Yuudaina had deliberately never introduced her to his family; eventually, though, he bit the bullet, and asked her to move to Loguetown, to which she agreed. As it happened, he had business with his family as well. The slave was still being trained by the Battler. He took a wide berth around both of them whenever he could. Sugureta was beginning to act up more and more lately, a sign that perhaps his parents were not the greatest at raising kids. And the parents themselves... were surprisingly willing to show contrition for their earlier arguments. Though Yuudaina was rather upset and horrified at how his mother's figure had turned near-spherical by this point, and still all but enraged by the continuing progress of indoctrination on the now-teenaged slave, she and his father not only blessed his impromptu marriage unconditionally (verbally, at least), but also promised to acquire the funds to build Alicia a new robotic arm to replace the one she'd lost, and furthermore presented him with a huge shape-shifting sword, "a weapon worthy of a newly commissioned officer- oh, did we forget to mention we've paid for you to head through officer training? Be sure to send us some money back from your cushy job!" He did wonder how much of this had to do with Sugureta's lack of suitability as the face of the Yuushuu family in the future, but not one to reject sudden charity, Yuudaina accepted the odd gifts and the implication, however forced on their part, that he was back in line to inherit most of their wealth once they passed. His training to become an Ensign was not particularly overbearing, and included an expanded patrol into the South Blue as well as the East Blue; but from then on, advancement would become increasingly difficult, with a solid two years between Ensign and Lieutenant Junior Grade, and another two from there to Lieutenant proper, and frequently decreasing timeframes in which he could see his beloved again, though with that in mind, he began practicing with Life Return in an effort to figure out agelessness and eternal youth for himself, and likewise encouraged Alicia to do the same, that they might spend eternity together once all else was said and done. He was around twenty seven when he heard the bad news: Saidou had finally tried to make good on his plan to turn the white-haired boy into a pleasure slave, only to wind up dead by the slave's own hand. Worse still, Sugureta had just days before stolen a vast quantity of the Yuushuu fortune, spending it on what Yuudaina had learned was called a Devil Fruit- the same power fueling his weapon's shapeshifting ability, as it happened- then fired the Battler by pretending his father had no further use for him, causing a ruckus during which the white-haired slave stole the Devil Fruit and escaped Loguetown entirely as a member of another pirate's crew. They weren't entirely broken as Nobility, and Kireina claimed they would recover in time, but they'd lost their patriarch and more than ninety-five percent of their wealth in that fiasco, with his brother the perpetrator now nowhere to be found. Naturally, Yuudaina was given leave to visit his grieving mother- who it turned out had been grieving for her dead husband for more than a month by the time he made his way home. Not that that stopped her from making rather bad decisions for Yuudaina. Apparently, though they were already strapped for cash, Kireina had bribed the Marines to essentially put in a good word for Yuudaina and get him moved to a position in the Grand Line, "because wouldn't that just be such a good legacy for our family to follow, my son working in the Grand Line?" Alas, Yuudaina suspected that whoever had handled the arrangements had had a cruel streak of irony in them, since supposedly, the bribe hadn't been sufficient to place Yuudaina anywhere in the Grand Line but one of its worst bases: Marine Grand Line 5th Branch, a.k.a. G-5, well-known for its troublemakers and upstarts, and located in the New World no less. Though he felt he might be a tad unprepared for such a posting, Yuudaina nevertheless approached the impromptu lifestyle change with gusto, and though comparatively new there, he has managed to get himself installed as the 2nd Patrol Unit's Master-at-Arms, making it his duty to better the base with his presence no matter its reputation.[/INDENT][/INDENT] [B]| M I S C. N O T E S: |[/B] [INDENT][INDENT]A [url=http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/Noble]Noble[/url] is not to be confused with a [url=http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/World_Nobles]World Noble.[/url] Additionally, Yuudaina is very fond of old-timey swing jazz and lounge music, and has a tendency to sing along with the lyrics or tune of any such song he knows. [i][u]Naming Legend, Japanese - English[/u][/i] Yuushuu - Excellence Saidou - Magnificent Kireina - Beautiful Yuudaina - Majestic Suguremashita - Superior Sugureta - Excellent (yes, his name is basically Excellent Excellence)[/INDENT][/INDENT] [/indent] [/hider]