Name: Hashiwa Risako
Rank: Academy Student
Gender: Female
Sex: Female
Age: 10
Physical Description: The girl is, for the most part, a healthy specimen and bears only a few recent signs of hard living. She is slightly taller than the average for her age group, though this anomaly may derive its existence from the child’s formally wealthy background, and consequently nutritious diet, rather than genetic heritage. She is dark haired, gray-eyed and possesses a somewhat lighter skin tone than the norm for her region’s climate, a condition that matches a background of homely comforts and private tutoring as opposed to outdoor activities.
Her muscular potential is similarly somewhat undeveloped, though her recent training has done much to raise her physical capacity endurance to an almost tolerable level in a short amount of time. Her body language is confident and fluid, possibly a consequence of some earlier training in the art of dance, that being said, her posture and expressions lack subtlety and bear the mark of ingrained class superiority, a shortcoming that must be curved if she is to take any part in covert action or accept a junior role in a team. Her attire consists of a battered blue & white kimono closer to dirt brown than its original colors. Several other obvious hand downs purchased during her journey to the land of lightning have since been replaced by academy uniforms and training clothes.
Mental Description: Risako has gone from a life of plenty to human property in a very short amount of time. Many of the mannerisms of her previous life are ingrained in her character, but her outlook on her life and present situation revolves around her recent experiences, to expect everything but take nothing for granted. Paradoxically, the violent and gruesome end of her family, though clearly a physiological scar, is not the burden on her thought process. The circumstances leading to her family’s end and the treachery of is retainers are seen as something of an enlightenment to the aspiring Shinobi.
The deaths of her family’s murderers to the treachery of the Shinobi that pursued them did not only deny any foolish notions of vengeance from gaining traction but further reinforced the deadly lesson of the fatality of trust and the truth found in betrayal.
Master student relationships proved little better, for her teacher and so-called guardian had no qualms about selling her out to the highest bidder. Family relations proved that blood is not thicker than water but just an unfortunately colored liquid who’s shared owners do not mind forsaking if there is no hard gain in coming to its defense.
Though she is young and impressionable, the understanding that she is truly alone and helpless in a world that would destroy her given half a chance has encouraged her to accept the imposed Shinobi lifestyle. She cares nothing for Kumo, in fact, she loathes the Shinobi arts that destroyed her past but tolerates the study of these practices for their part in waking her to the truth of the world and giving her the tools to destroy her powerlessness against it. She will train, she will become stronger and sing the praises of her glorious leaders, teachers, brothers, and sisters in arms, all the while those actions guarantee her own security and status as a hunter rather than prey.
History: The Hashiwa family was until recently one of the more recognized merchant families of Bear Country. Tracing their lineage to the old aristocracy of the United Kingdom of Bear and Marsh, the Hashiwa inherited several landed estates in the north and traded much of their produce to the nearby Marshlands.
In the years after the Bear-Marsh War, many of the old agricultural lands of the North lost their value, due, in part, to the rising productivity of the upcoming royal estates in several deforested areas in the west, and the mutual economic barriers between Bear and Marsh. The Hashiwa decided to confront the challenge by directing its remaining fortune towards a new tea crop native to Bear Country, thus challenging Tea Country's monopoly. The effort met with some early success and the family's prospects seemed bright. In the year that followed, however, dozens of trade caravans were intercepted by bandits, Hashiwa warehouses where burned ant the tea harvest was poisoned. When the Hashiwa paid for Shinobi protection, other Shinobi confronted them. Investigations into the identity of the attackers turned little useful information, as the opposing Shinobi where never told the identity of their patron, and thus, the standoff continued for several years.
The unknown opposition turned out to have deeper pockets, and thus, the growing economic burden of hiring Shinobi over a long period of time convinced the family to turn to an illegal but lucrative crop of opium to pay off its growing debts. Since Shinobi from Hoshigakure could not be trusted to keep the operation secret, the family hired outlaws and missing-nin to protect the trade caravans and keep the peasants who worked the opium fields quiet. The Hashiwa did all it could to protect itself; bribing, threatening and arranging "accidents" for its critics and opponents. The ploy worked, for a time, many suspicions remained but anyone with hard evidence wisely cept their mouth shut. The family remained in the opium trade and prospered, but not all was well with the business, and the veil of secrecy surrounding the Hashiwa fell to pieces when the family finally went a step too far.
A prominent magistrate, dedicated to uprooting the growing prevalence of opium in Bear Country, launched an investigation into long-held suspicions regarding the Hashiwa family's involvement. Bribery attempts failed to curve the magistrate's honest nature, and as he was too highly placed to assassinate, the Hashiwa arranged the kidnapping of the magistrate's family in an attempt to intimidate him. The attempt met with complications, and though the daughter was successfully spirited away, the magistrate’s wife resisted and was slain, prompting bear country to commission Hoshigakure Shinobi to pursue the kidnappers and attempt a rescue.
The kidnappers were found and many of them were slain, but the Shinobi came too late to save the magistrate’s daughter from the many depravities inflicted on her person by her captures. Public outcry from the event prompted swift actions against the Hashiwa; Previously fearfull witnesses revealed the extent of the family's involvement in the opium trade, such as the reign of terror under which the peasents involved in the drug's cultivation lived, and how would be whistle blowers disappeared one night only to be found face down in a lake the next day. The testimonies convined Bear country to seize the Hashiwa lands and send out orders for the arrest of the family's leaders. In a final ironic twist, the family's missing-nin, instead of protecting its patrons turned on them in an attempt to save their own skins from the approaching Hoshigakure shinobi. The estate was ransacked and the family heads were killed. Risako, the daughter and heir of the Hashiwa family's lord, was saved by a loyal missing nin retainer, but not before the young child witnessed the end of her family and the execution of the traitoros missing nin at the hands of the Shinobi they sought to appease.
The mercenary looked out for Risako and gave her a rudimentary education in self-defense during their journey to Risako’s relatives in the Land of Lightning. During their training, the missing nin discovered his charge’s Shinobi potential, knowledge that would later convince him to sell Risako to the CPSS once it became clear that Risako’s relatives would not compensate him for Risako’s safe delivery. Risako was thus unwillingly pressed into the ranks of Kumo, and though her physical and chakra manipulating attributes require a great deal of cultivation, physiologically Risako has already learned what she perceives to be most valuable lesson of all; that the way of the Shinobi revolves around the act of betrayal.
