Member
Shin Ghost NoteName: Kitamura Haruka (北村 遥花)
Age: 24
Age: 24
Appearance: Haruka stands at 180 cm(just shy of six foot) and weighs in at a willowy 63.5 kg(140 lbs), and yet does not look gaunt, only graceful. Her hair shows evidence of being cared for in the past, and is kept in a long ponytail or a large bun most of the time. Pale of skin, she appears to fairly exude nobility, something she has tried to hide unsuccessfully. Dark eyes, shadowed by weariness and stress, stare into the middle distance most of the time, though her fighting spirit is obvious when she focuses.
By tiny mannerisms, such as how she stands, the way she looks imperiously over others when observing, the way she holds herself, she is clearly a former samurai, though she has tried to disguise this by wearing only the most common of clothing. Attempts to appear as a born ronin are frequent, though not constant in execution. She can sometimes be observed to check herself and then slouch or otherwise attempt to appear less than she is.
Movement-wise, her long legs carry her quickly, and the strength and speed by which she moves belie augmentation even though none is visible. She also tends to, as most samurai, move as though nothing but her goal matters, cutting through crowds and obstacles with disdain. In combat, her augments become even more obvious, as she moves far faster than a natural human should, and can strike quicker than any but another trained samurai could react.
Armour-wise, without her exosuit, Haruka prefers classically designed raiment with modern material, in the hon kozane dou style. The scales are all made with lightweight alloyed metal, though she forgoes the sode in favour of manueverability, leaving her shoulders exposed but with a much greater range of motion. She owns them, and will don them for ceremonial purposes.
Despite her dour exterior, Haruka is quite warm in personality, and this shows sometimes when she is relaxing. A small smile or a lifting of the brows at something a child shows her, or a hearty laugh at a joke. And when drunk, something she has fallen into the habit of doing recently, she can in fact be boisterous and rather ignorant of personal space, tending to hang off of others with abandon to keep herself either standing or in the conversation. Her favourite topics include poetry, music, and small, furry animals, no matter the species or world of origin.
Origin: Samurai
Former Faction: Takeda
Skills:
Primary: Swordsmanship
Secondary: Piloting, Survival
Fighting Style: Ten Kara no Kaminari (天からの雷, Thunder from Heaven) is a fast and brutal combat style, perfected by Morishige Kaito, as befitting his unit's role as a shock force. There is no pause for reading your opponent as in most styles, no standing back and waiting. The fighter is trained through a harsh regimen to read their opponent as they react to the charge, and fight appropriately. Strikes are aimed to maim, disable, or kill outright as quickly as possible, with little artistry if it gets in the way of efficiency. Major joints and the neck are typical targets. Training happens with katana, naginata, masakari, wakazashi, and even tanto. When unarmed, the style relies on closing fast, inside the opponents range, and striking with forehead, elbow, and knee, savaging the opponent too quickly for him to react well. Throws are rare, as it defeats the purpose, though joint locks with the aim of breaking bones are common. Inside an exosuit, the style remains mostly unchanged, though the use of booster jets and utilising the RAI as an offensive tool against unarmoured opponents come into play. The style demands a very small exosuit, compared to others, barely more than an armoured flightsuit, allowing the Iron Samurai to move lightning fast compared to larger, bulkier opponents.
Weapons: Yume no Hana o Karu(夢の花を刈る, Dream-cutting Blossom), when expanded to it's full length, is a five and a half foot naginata with a monoedged blade that glitters blue when struck by the right light, but otherwise looks mostly just like a normal blade. The pole features cleverly disguised ridges inside a sakura blossom motif, pink and black on a white background. The ridges themselves are the result of the weapons functionality, designed to fit inside a fighter crafts cockpit without getting in the way. It telescopes down to merely a foot and a half, with the blade sliding down into the haft. It can be flicked open remarkably fast, though a safety catch near the base is what releases the blade itself, allowing the super-strong alloyed pole to be used as a staff if desired.
Standard daisho set: Though monoedged, the katana is a simple affair, bearing a simple black scabbard and hilt with silver highlights. The wakizashi, however, bears the same motif as the naginata.
Kurēnburēdo class fighter craft: This specialty of the Takeda's is a long, narrow, blade-like ship, cockpit near the rear, with a twin mounted rear impulse engine and extremely powerful manuevering jets. Several heavy rapid-fire auto-cannons, not as powerful as railguns but in the same neighbourhood, spread along the “crosstree” of the craft, pointing forwards. The crowning point of the thing, however, is the finely tuned balance. It turns on a dime and moves extremely fast. In formation they can tear apart most other fighter craft, when well piloted, and does very well even in dogfights.
Measuring twelve metres from nosecone to exhaust, when fully loaded it carries enough fuel for three days of low-grade impulse travel, or around twelve hours of combat. The ammunition bay holds thirty-six thousand rounds of caseless 30mm slugs, in batches of six-thousand for each of the six cannons, mounted hexagonally around the midline "crosstree". The whole of the ship weighs in at around fifteen tonnes, and can easily hide in the silhouette of most other ships when needed, which is how she got it on board the station to begin with.
Motivation: With her expulsion from the ranks of the Takeda samurai, Haruka has lost direction. No stranger to being by herself for periods of time, she has kept herself in shape, and currently does odd-jobs to earn money or food. However, her honour pulls her two ways. First, with the dishonour and execution of her lord, society demands that she commit seppuku, but as the last of her fighting style, she cannot let it die with her. To that end, she is painstakingly saving up to start a dojo, teach one student, and then she can decide whether she should live or not.
Backstory: Born to a minor family inside a subsidiary company of a subsidiary company of the Takeda Corporation, Haruka was the only child of the Kitamura primary line. Without a son, her father decided that she must be better than anyone else, to bring glory to their name, and thus she was trained as soon as she could walk in all that bushido aimed to be. Her father, an idealist and of a low enough rank to not be dangerous to his superiours, used much of his money getting her trained with the main Takeda samurai, purchasing favours where he could to earn her place. She did him very proudly, taking to both combat and courtly behaviour quite easily, and was selected for her lord's main body, assigned to the illustrious Morishige Thunders. Here, under Morishige's watchful eye, she became the top student of Ten Kara no Kaminari.
Serving from fifteen years old, Haruka distinguished herself in combat multiple times over, survivng being stranded in enemy territory on several occasions, once even successfully taking control of a small military vessel after being taken prisoner. Several times, she earned direct praise from her Lord Sawada, who gifted her the naginata she now carries.
However, just one year ago, in an unprecedented assault on the Takeda holdings by Nobunaga-Zaibatsu, Morishige's unit was called in, but failed to arrive in time, resulting in a minor lord's death. Morishige himself was found dead drunk the next day, and the whole unit was arrested, saving that Haruka was sent away just before the arrest, and while technically is wanted by Lord Sawada for arrest and judgement, she refuses to come in and has fled to Kaisen Station. In the past year, she has poorly attempted to disguise her true nature, removed all identifying labels of her former corporate overlords, and now works to survive on the station, taking jobs she inwardly seethes at having to do. Morishige's final words to her were to not let the Ten Kara no Kaminari die with him, so she is honour bound now to find a way to further the school.
Her fighter craft is now stashed in an abandoned docking bay, where it sits idle until she can one day regain enough of her sense of honour to allow herself to fly it again. The outer insignia have all been masked, and much useless junk added to disguise its sleek lines. She actually lives in the docking bay as well, keeping to herself when not working or drinking at a local sake house.
