Name:Nori Ito
Age:17
Gender: female
Race: Bunny
Appearance:
Does not tend to wear what is pictured. Prefers to wear loose robes, with chainmail like material sewn between layers of cloth. While not especially protective, it keeps her light and wards off some damange. It also hides her slightly pear shaped figure.
Personality:
Nori is often cold and a-floof. I mean aloof. She does not readily open up to people, seeing it as pointless to do so. As such, she can sometimes be hard to trust and return that trust. Little is better on the battlefield, as while she is a devastating martial combatant, she lacks a good sense of good tactics, often over extending on her own and being more concerned with finishing her objectives and her own survival than anyone in her unit.
She prefers simple and comfortable things, often dressing purely for function than form. She also tends to speak sharply and honestly. This rather brusque set of mannerisms, combined with her somewhat deep and raspy voice, sometimes confuses others who know no better that she is a thick headed and violent young man, albeit a very effective one. She sees no reason to correct them on this, being comfortable with being addressed as either.
There are softer sides to this rather off putting rabbit though. She enjoys calligraphy, and often practices it in her more private moments. She also has a strong sense of honor, refusing to strike an unarmed opponent unless necessary. The few she considers herself close to she is exceptionally protective of, going at times so far as to sabotage them if she feels it will keep them safe.
Brief Backstory:
Hihi'irokane is an alloy that can trace its origins to the empire of Akitsushima. It is hailed for its durability, edge retention, and the fire like warmth which radiates from it at all times, even when plunged in water. What we call hihi'irokane (in its most basic form) is made from a blend of copper, iron, and cobalt. Between blacksmiths of the region, no two hihi'irokane recipes are the same. Some substitute orchalcum (aka, mountain copper, if they can afford it) to the blend for greater rigidity and increased heat, some use more iron as a way to reduce cost but retain a good quality metal. Still others grind precious stones into the mix, to various effects.
The Ito clan was no exception to this, and their own hihi'irokane was highly valued for its luster and intense heat. Over decades, they produced some of the finest blades of the region, both in the theater of war and ceremony and were more than a little well off for their troubles. They held lands privately, had a small private militia of nearly fifty men, a sprawling estate and workshop, and even managed to achieve noble, if minor, title. However, with all success comes envy, and there were more than a few rivals to their position,
Nori was the youngest of four children to be born in the main household of the Ito clan. Her eldest sister, Jin, was set to inherit the family title and manage the lands which they held. The second eldest sibling, her sister Hinata, was to inert the family trade and continue the rich blacksmithing tradition which sustained their families wealth and status, though in recent generations had lost some of its former glory. The remaining children, her sister Ryuki and herself, were left largely to find their own path. While Ryuki took to studying maritime warfare, Nori pursued calligraphy and art.
When Nori was thirteen, her sister Jin finally took his position as the family figure head following the death of their mother. The Ito clan during this time was plagued with problems, Jin accrued a massive debt without informing much of the clan, the bulk of which was owed to various mining companies for the procurement of rare materials and ore. This as not an unheard of practice. Many smiths, even of noble families, would borrow ores on credit from what they believed they could sell the finished product at. Jin lorded over the production, constant demands for greater quality leaving Hinata and the other artisan smiths at their wits end. The resulting weapons were vastly over priced and produced excruciatingly slowly, due to a combination of Jin's ego and the family's need to at least break even after all the redesigns.
All attempts for sales failed, and the creditors began to swarm to the Ito estate, demands for payment rising into an unyielding chorus. Nori attempted to help in what few ways she could, but beyond occasionally entertaining guests she was trapped on the sinking vessel that was her clan.
The Yamakawa clan, former rival smithing and mining clan and now chief creditor, were amongst the loudest voices. However, they would claim they were not without mercy. In a private meeting, Nori and the rest of the family in attendance, they offered a deal. Provide the Yamakawa clan the recipe for the Ito clan's method of producing hihi'irokane, and they would annul all debts to the clan. Save Nori, the head family refused unanimously, reasoning that the secret to Ito steel was their last chip to bet on.
The Yamakawa head was, obviously, furious at their refusal, storming off their estate swearing that they would not receive another chance to cleanly erase their debt. Worried for her family's safety, Nori quietly contacted him, offering to secretly exchange the family metal for the family's desperately needed break. He agreed happily, and a meeting was arranged at the border of the Yamakawa and Ito lands.
The meeting was meant to be a simple, quiet exchange. Nori only brought herself and the driver of her coach, a man who by no means could be mistaken for a bodyguard. When she arrived, the Yamakawa head greeted her, accompanied by a small contingent of guards. Hesitantly, Nori handed over all the information she could gather asking, if only to comfort herself, that he was sure this is what he wanted.
With a warm smile the Yamakawa head turned to her and in a clear chipper voice, “Why of course!” At the time, that had put her at ease, but as she turned to walk back to her coach she felt something violently grab hold of her ears and the flash of burning metal across her neck.
The full details of the violent massacre that occurred on the Ito estate that night are not known to her. To the public eye, a riot of Ito's creditors (excluding the Yamakawa clan, conveniently) stormed the home, taking their payment in stolen goods or, if nothing was left, blood. This was the story Nori awoke to, told second hand from a disheveled ronin as she lay in the back of his cart, bleeding but alive.
She begged the man to return her home, desperate to find if even a shred of her family remained. He hesitated, but eventually obliged. To this day, she regrets asking, and still at times sees her sisters limply hanging from the banisters of their burnt husk of a home. The ronin remained quiet throughout, indifferent to the death around him and offering no comfort to the sobbing fourteen year old at is his feet. It was well into dusk before her tears dried to nothing and with a sigh the ronin collected her, stopping only to collect a gleaming line of red steel hidden among the embers.
She continued to travel with the ronin, who refused to give any soul his name, after that. At first, grief consumed her daily and she could rarely muster the energy to leave the cart. However, grief soon gave way to a depth of rage she had never felt before, lashing out at both strangers and the ronin at seemingly random. After the third town they'd been chased from, the ronin put it plainly. She needed to calm herself and if she did, he'd arm her with the tools needed to slaughter those who'd wronged her. Nori agreed readily.
Two years she studied under the ronin. Conditions were grueling, to say the least. Whoever the man was, he was a cruel taskmaster. There was no exercise she did not drill a thousand times, no stance she had not maintained for hours perfectly. Still, despite his efforts and all her training, he could never fully quiet the raging storm that had settled in the girl.
He'd long since run out of things to teach her before he decided she was beyond him. She was by no means his equal, the gap in experience was too great. But she was a deadly force in her own right. One that wanted nothing more than to bear down on the Yamakawa clan and all its members. With a heavy heart, he dragged the girl to Merilia, a woman he'd known loosely through rumor and reputation, and with a heavy heart made the girl someone else's problem as he went back to wandering. Selfish? Maybe. But the girl had been given more than she was worth to him, and he had no interest in being dragged into another war.
Nori remained a problem bunny for a while, failing to make friend outside of the bunny obsessed patron herself, though she did noticeably calm down after a year. At least enough for Merilia to trust the young rabbit with a recon mission in the far off land of Thaln.
Equipment:
-katana named akaiittou: Among the last great triumphs of the Ito family before their fall. The blade is 75cm's long and a brilliant red color, housed in a polished black sheath. Functions like any normal sword of this make, though when drawn small flames coat its surface and the air around it is exceptionally warm. While certainly painful, the blade does not get warm enough to seriously damage other tempered blades, but prolonged contact is ill advised.
Jade Choker: A small jade choker that sits tightly around Nori's neck, hiding a long ugly scare from the attempt on her life. This magical tricket has little use, but it does translate Nori's native language to Thaln's common tongue, and vice versa, allowing her to communicate with the locals easily.
Skills:
Swordsmen: Nori is a dervish of death with her chosen weapon, in particular with iajutsu. However, she has not let her mastery make her complacent, and approaches opponents with unfamiliar weapons cautiously until she has a firm idea on how best to circumvent them.
The Riddle of Steel: Nori comes from a family of blacksmiths, as such she has intimate knowledge of exceptional craftsmen ship in that field. From any distance, she can asses the approximate quality of a blade. She also knows the Ito families methods of producing hihi'irokane, a secret she will only share with her future spouse or a blacksmith who could be trusted just as deeply.
Artistic: While her main focus is calligraphy, Nori does have a working knowledge of many techniques used in painting.
other: She enjoys anyone who can master the art of blacksmithing to satisfy her high standards. She also finds hundi to be very agreeable, knowing all too well herself the value of a good ear rub.
FlappyTheSpybot