Karu's NPCs

[Kari]

Character Age: 26
Gender: Male
Character's Physical Description:
Keita isn't one who would fight for the kageship of Iwagakure. He lacks in finesse. He is something of a slender build, stands roughly around 1.5 meters, or six feet, and weighs around one hundred seventy pounds. His time in Iwagakure wasn't a violent one; from such, Keita's body has few markings or scars on it. The ones that there there came from simple child's play before going to Iwagakure. There is little importance in keeping proper hair within the village, even as one of its leaders, and Keita follows that idea. His hair is lengthy and unruly; it falls farther than his shoulders, and stray hairs pointing in every which direction give Keita an overall eccentric feel. Quite often, Keita is seen wearing something of a poncho over the traditional simply clothing of the villagers.

Character's Mental Description:
Keita's mind is his strength. Through the power of illusion, a gift granted to him by the Old Gods during his time of worship at the Temple of Five, Keita is able to fight in a way that most of the village, which was built on physical strength cannot. He is quick-witted, and even quicker when it comes to discussions of the Old ones. Keita is something of a socialite within the village, a nature that came to him from his early life being raised in Maruishi. Most find him agreeable enough, if not slightly annoying with the insistence on religion and Shamanism and other points he loves to discuss which fall under his expertise.

How much is one worth? No, this isn't a rhetorical question in the slightest. It isn't referring to value in metaphysical terms, either. For the parents of Keita, the question was a very real one. And the answer was a meager one: one million yen payed in ten dividends of one-hundred thousand yen per year for ten years.

The family that would, in twelve years, sell their child was a family of little importance in the Earth capital of Maruishi. Keita's father was a government worker of the city, namely a hired physician; Keita's mother was a housewife. They weren't exactly a rich family, but by no means were they a poor one. Neither stuck too much out of the crowd; they were just your ordinary family. A baby boy, a mother, and a working father.

It wasn't until Keita was the age of three that he showed signs of being able to manipulate his own personal chakra. Of course, the young boy didn't understand the gravity of such, but the parents did. It wasn't a bad thing, either. Those who could use chakra could do what those whom weren't in touch with their inner power couldn't. Most with this capability were amassed within Iwagakure, serving as "thoughtless, backwards killers," as Keita's father would so often put it. But Keita didn't have to fall into that! He could continue in his father's practice as a physician, and since he could practice even more intricate procedures with jutsu, Keita might even one day serve the royal court!

It was that optimistic belief that brought the two parents to, at the early age of three, begin drilling their child in the medical art that the city had to offer. And it had plenty, even without chakra. Lists of equipment memorized, each matched to their purpose and how to use them. Ailments, injuries, diseases: hundreds known by name, others by symptoms. Cures, homemade brews or otherwise, learned and matched to what they could heal. Naturally, the two parents began lightly on their child, given he was still of a toddler age. When he reached the age of five, he was enrolled into the civilian's primary education system of the city, where he was taught everything a civilian ought to know. His daily medical lessons his father ensured time for came immediately after. Keita's life as a youth was entirely academic.

It wasn't entirely a bad life. The parents were just enforcing the desire to learn and to pursue the field of being a doctor onto the boy.

The then-boy's parents followed something of a hedonist's lifestyle. They saught whatever would bring them pleasure, and their pleasure came from material goods. They weren't the ones who were looking to have the largest house, or the most servants. They'd buy the trivial things, and many of them. The simple things that ventors all around the streets of Maruishi would sell. They bought and bought until they couldn't again afford.

That's when they sold Keita.

For the agreement of 100,000 Yen annually for the next ten years, Keita was to be put into a temporary enslavement to the Iwagakure government, where he would serve as one of their shinobi. Not a bad deal for the parents. They seemed happy about it.

Now being taken into a completely different lifestyle at the late age of twelve can have serious effects on a person. They might become withdrawn, have social difficulties, become depressed for periods of times, and plenty of other problems. It would be a lie to say that Keita didn't at times have these problems. One of the children at the Academy, when Keita was being forced through an expediated course schedule, such that he could become a shinobi faster, named Souji seemed to take particular interest in him during one of those phases. Whatever he saw in him, Keita hadn't a clue, in retrospect.

Taijutsu classes weren't really the boy's specialty. Nothing beyond sometimes being able to successfully being able to throw and hit things. Even that, though, wasn't so great. His ability with Ninjutsu was average at best. Though he had found out he could manipulate his chakra, it wasn't something he had continued too much with due to not being taught it earlier. His ability with forming handseals and focusing the chakra to invoke a spell was normal at best. It was his mind and the illusions he could craft where he was great. This is why the Iwagakure government, at the age of thirteen, after passing his Genin exam, had him join the Shamans.

It was also this age that a new, popular religion had a sweeping success within Iwagakure and was growing fast. It was one known as the Fayth, something Keita had taken up as a means of coping with the new lifestyle in the village. The religion brought him hope, something that he hadn't much of.

His studies of the Old Ones and their histories made up much of his days. The others were filled with practice of his ability with illusions that the Five had granted him. And the rest was his time to practice the modern medical techniques of the city above the village. His time was purely academic and mental training. Shaman thought him dedicated, incredibly so for a slave. Two years of this training permitted him to take their ritual to become one of the true Shamans: the Rites of Ascention. Three years had passed; Keita was now fifteen and one of the Shaman, the highest rank attainable within that branch of work. Shamans saw themselves all as equals, only some younger and some elder. Keita was the youngest at the time.

Two more years pass in silence. Keita's dedication to study and dedication to the Fayth, in addition to the Old Ones, gave him something of a name within the Shamans. He was passionate about what he did, they said. All the youth were about something. Keita's combinations of the Shamans' methods in addition to more modern ones of the Maruishi medics brought him varied acclaim; many called him revolutionary, as he was not practicing their more taboo arts; others called him a heretic and one as bad, if not worse for joining the Shamans, as the other medics. Either way, Keita remained, and those whom had gotten to know him agreed with his ideas. Another year and Keita would become one of the leaders, a group generally reserved for the elder Shamans. It was in that year, too that they held a council meeting. Keita, and those within this council-esque group who supported him, fought for the Fayth to become one of the major practiced religions within the Shamans. Days of debate brought success, finally, and set Keita up as the stongest leader of the group, effectively making him the leader of the Shaman. That wasn't to say that he was completely unopposed, there were many Iwagakurian Shaman who still thought him to be a heretic, or the Sin that the Fayth refers to.

At the age of twenty, two years into this power-hold, Keita begins to actually act on it. He began a campaign of missions between the Shaman and medics of Maruishi to begin combining the two. Of course, they weren't closely connected, but they were under the same banner and name and leader. It made them stronger for it, even if the two groups wouldn't work together. Now they could be made to.

Again, two years later, Keita's indentured servitude ends. He remains within the village and, for his efforts in combining the branches, is set up as the first military Jun of Iwagakure. No longer was the Shaman just a practice, now it was a branch of the military. Keita was their, and the medics', Sennin now.

He is now twenty-six when the end of Konohagakure and Kirigakure occurs and many of their people join the village's population.