Name: Maboroshi Saiju
Age: 13
Rank: Academy Student
Physical Description:
Saiju has green eyes and messy dark green hair with black highlights. He has a preference to wearing monochromatic clothing of earthly tones and colors, normally gravitating towards black, gray, or green. He has a well-developed muscular body, showing that he trains his young body extensively. He is rather tall for his age, also being incredibly lean with hardly any body fat. Despite being quite handsome, his mannerisms and demeanor make many consider him to be very plain looking. He walks slouched, leading many to instantly notice that he seems to be quite a slothful individual in both personality and appearance, hardly putting effort in his mannerisms and gestures.
Upon closer inspection of his physique, some well healed scars can be seen due to the many experiments performed upon him since his birth. Due to being born as a rather frail and ill child, COMPANY performed inhuman experiments on Saiju in an attempt to forcibly instill the ability to manipulate chakra among those incapable of doing so. The genetic manipulation affected Saiju’s entire genetic makeup, which enabled him to control chakra. However, in doing so, red vein like lines course throughout his body that coincide with the chakra flowing through his chakra pathways.
He has scarring and deformities throughout his fingers and hand, from various experiments to attach foreign muscle tissue forcibly after experiencing muscle death during the period he was still incredibly ill. Due to these deformities and scarring, he prefers to have gloves and clothing covering his hands and arms, not so much out of embarrassment but simply getting tired of people asking him about his scars and fingers.
Mental Description:
Saiju is generally a slothful, nonchalant, indifferent, and lazy individual with an inclination to do as little work as possible. He spent most of his time sleeping, watching the clouds, and playing games or lounging around generally doing nothing. He normally behaves phlegmatically, and walks slouching almost as if sleepwalking or lacking any form of consciousness. Very rarely he can be seen practicing martial arts, being a very skilled physical combatant despite his slothful nature. His goal seems to be to live unremarkably, free of anything of noticeably good or bad, and then to die as unremarkably as he lived. He finds many situations troublesome, preferring to keep to himself and enjoying his rather carefree existence. He tends to balk at the idea of having to do work and is rather infamous for disappearing when tasks requiring work and dedication arise, as such he has no motivation whatsoever in living life as a shinobi. Saiju is rarely seen exciting about something, and even less frequently, says he likes something.
Due to his demeanor and personality, he hardly puts efforts into anything at all and many consider him unremarkable with no real potential. Upon closer inspection, Saiju is notable for having an analytical and strategic mind with a real knack for warfare and war strategy, his main issue being his lack of motivation in doing anything at all. He appears to be tormented by the ghosts of his past and has frequent nightmares of his former life and early childhood. As he “died” once in his childhood, he considers that a part of him died that day and therefore doesn’t show the slightest fear of the possibility of being killed, often acting as if to challenge death, in order to prove to himself that he is still alive. He has an odd habit of smiling even when facing death or tragedy, remembering his mentor once telling him to always smile at the face of adversity.
When he is not working, Saiju is laid back, sarcastic, and lively to the dismay of those around him. He is typically found napping or reading magazines and novels, usually those far too adult for a young child to be reading. While many view shinobi as heroes of their homeland, Saiju’s image is far from the idea of one, and, on the contrary, has characteristics typical of an antihero. He never acts to protect anyone but only for interest, often has to be persuades to coming himself to a mission he considers little exciting, and has a rather sharp and cynical sense of humor, often throwing himself headfirst into action regardless of the damage caused to people and surrounding area, and doesn’t have the slightest moral scruples of having to kill someone, being quite accustomed to taking life even at a young age.
Despite his aversion to work and his general morbid view on the shinobi lifestyle, Saiju has in fact found a calling in the field, having spent most of his young life in life or death situations, believing that the only place he could feel truly alive was in situations where his life was in danger. People that have grown to know him have accused him of enjoying killing warfare, though he often refuses to admit such a perversion. Due to his detachment to life and work, some have considered him to be cold and uncaring when on a mission, showing no remorse for his killings and for never shedding a tear to his comrades deaths. However this is untrue, as he has seemed to bury his emotions deep inside himself, even those of grief. By burying said emotions, he does not possess any qualms for doing things that are normally considered unacceptable social behavior if it meant completing a mission or task, showing a rather complex personality for such a young man.
In spite of all this, Saiju still has a good heart, and whether he admits it or not, is more caring than he lets on, indicating that he loves humanity and loves life despite a cynical and morbid view of the world. He also seems to have a flirtatious nature towards female team members, and has been known to express interest in intimate relationships on occasion to the dismay of female adults who scold him for such behavior. However, despite this interest, he does not getting involved with other people’s lives and is a loner by nature, standing up various date offers, showing an aversion to “love”, perhaps even a fear of falling in love as he feels loss would ultimately damage him further. He can be affectionate towards those he gets close to, showing a nurturing and caring side of himself not often seen, as shown when he performs small tasks to make those he cares for feel better, however he tends to do it anonymously as to not draw attention to himself. As such, he has a multifaceted personality that is often hard to figure out, showing that perhaps he is much more humane than most believe.
Origin Story:
1.1 Saiju was born in the darkest corners of the Godsfall, in the large landscape of sand known as The Desert Expanse. He was sickly with a frail body at birth, causing his parents to abandon him in a cavern as they didn’t have the means to support him. Left for dead, he was picked up by a criminal syndicate that were performing underground death matches. He was tossed into the pit with a pack of sand Hykals for food, but for unknown reasons the Hykals instead adopted the boy as their own, opting not to eat him. With the aid of a fellow prisoner and former Sunagakure Jounin who was imprisoned in the cell next to the boy, the infant was able to survive for several years in the terrible conditions as the lingering smell of blood and rotting flesh filled the dungeon like cave with this being the only life the boy knew. A crack in the ceiling of the cave let the boy grow up seeing the sky, often being one of his primarily sources of entertainment in a very limited lifestyle.
The Jounin, who went by the name of Itami became an integral part in the boy’s developmental process, preventing him from becoming a fully feral child. He taught him to speak, read, write, and told the boy many stories of past experiences. Naming the boy Saiju [Wicked Beast] for being literally part of a Hykal pact, he developed a father son relationship with the young orphaned child. Being part of the Hykal pact, Saiju was constantly thrown into death matches whenever the Hykals were placed in combat. Being sickly and weak, he could do nothing but hide in the back as the Hykals protected their weakest link in combat. Itami, being unable to train the boy due to the cell bars between them and for the fact that Saiju had a severely crippling illness that prevented him from performing strenuous activities, had to figure out a way to help the boy survive.
Itami began instead teaching the boy strategy and survival tactics, hoping that helping him develop a strategic mind would allow him to use his wits to survive rather than physical abilities. This proved helpful, allowing Saiju to use dirty unconventional tactics and giving him a keen mind to help him past his weaknesses and to survive the various death matches he was placed in. He also seemed to have a keen animalistic mind, being quite familiar with how the other fauna operated and using this to his advantage to develop strategies to survive long enough for the Hykal to win with their sheer numbers and skills. This worked admirably until the boys seventh birthday, when they threw him and the Hykal against a Human opponent for the first time. The other human was a skilled combatant, killing many Hykal and rushing his way forward to kill Saiju as well. The Hykal became fiercely protective and defended him at the cost of many of their lives, eventually overpowering the Human boy. However this only led to further issues, as the boy belonged to a man known as Miroku Akkuma, who grew quite interested in Saiju after witnessing wild fauna protect him as one of their own.
Akkuma decided to buy ownership of Saiju, taking the boy from his cell temporarily at the protest of Itami who felt powerless in his cell, unable to protect Saiju in his state. Arriving at a lab owned by Akkuma, the boy nervously looked around, hardly able to walk as he experienced muscle death in various limbs and was too ill to do much of anything on his own. Akkuma began experimenting on the child, performing inhumane acts and atrocities more for amusement than anything else. Akkuma was interested in seeing if he could create a stronger being from such a deathly ill child. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months. Saiju was Akkuma’s personal guinea pig and his gene therapy experiments, also gradually remodeling his weakened skeletal structure and replacing his dead muscle in the process.
Subjected to drugs for the next four years as Akkuma continued his research on his new subject, performing all sorts of atrocities and acts on the young boy. To avoid the painful reality he lived, Saiju often retreated into his mind, wondering if all shinobi were like this monster who used him as a toy, wondering if perhaps Itami was the only sane one left. He retreated to memories of Itami, remembering how his father figure taught him many things and made him feel cared for despite the horrendous situation he was in. Eventually the torturous experiments ended and Akkuma tossed Saiju back into the pits to finally see the fruits of his labor. With a genetically altered body, the boy was now in great physical condition with only minor scarring and deformities as evidence of the atrocities committed on his young body.
Itami instantly remembered the boy, seeing his changed body and dark warped mind. The Jounin shed a tear that the boy he loved as his own experienced such agony at such a young age. Saiju was returned to his original cell, but apparently in the coming years most of the Hykals from his original pact were either killed in the arena or died of natural causes such as age. All the boy had left was Itami now. His name was called soon after he was thrown into the cage, hardly being able to greet his only friend as he was then forced to battle a seemingly young adult now as Akkuma watched on curiously. On this day, Saiju took his first life, one of many he would take during his time in the pit. Akkuma was pleased, his experiment worked far better than intended, Saiju could even control chakra now but an apparent side effect caused him do develop red vein like markings on his chakra pathways when using chakra even for physical combat.
Saiju, eleven at the time, spent the next two years in countless battles against fauna and men alike. Now able to defend himself, he developed an animalistic and extremely violent fighting style that proved to be affective in the arena. Itami at this time continued teaching his friend, also teaching him philosophical values in hopes of letting the boy retain his sanity in such an insane situation. This continued until his thirteenth birthday, Saiju begrudgingly earning Akkuma many wins in the pit as he fought for his life. After a slave revolt, Saiju and Itami were able to escape the pit as they ran out with Saiju tasting freedom for the first time. Unfortunately the happiness was short lived as Akkuma confronted them and attacked both Saiju and Itami, the latter being extremely malnourished and unable to stand on an even ground against the skilled and powerful Akkuma. In a last ditch effort, he sacrificed himself to allow Saiju to escape, this would be the last known time Saiju shed tears for anyone. Akkuma watched on after taking Itami’s life, interesting in seeing the progress his specimen would show, deciding to watch from the shadows instead of chasing Saiju further. He wasn’t done with Saiju, he had plans for the boy who was unaware of the trouble the mercenary would bring.
Saiju being unfamiliar with the land or life outside the cave, he knew nothing of the geography and struggled to survive in the harsh climate of the Wind Country. He was eventually found by a shinobi from Sunagakure and was taken to the village against his will as he fought and protested. Eventually the boy settled and decided to live like his master dreamed, a carefree life where he would live peacefully with freedom, with his only goal being to eventually claim revenge on Akkuma for all that he had done, calling him the Sunako [Desert Fox] as he never learned Akkuma’s true name. Unfortunately the life of a shinobi was the way he would have to accomplish his dream, as his ability to mold chakra made him eligible to join the Academy and he was sent there to start life anew.
NOTES: Name change request below.
Name Change
