Santaru Rin

Santaru Rin · Oct 24, 2012

Dead Basics said:
Sex: Female

Age: 42

Status: ANBU, Regent Commander, Sennin

Appearance said:
Height/Weight: 5'10", +/- 140lbs.

Eyes: Rin has large, dark bluish-gray eyes with heavy lashes.

Hair: Rin's hair is silvery-gray, and she has allowed it to grow out past her shoulders. It has a gentle wave, and a nearly golden hue in some light.

General Appearance: Rin is tall for a woman and slim, never having truly bulked out despite her age. She has strong hands and the arms of someone who works hard for a living. Age and sun have darkened her skin, and her face has gentle worry and smile lines drawn across it. She's generally smiling nice and calmly, but she's also a troublemaker, and it shows in thin, pale scars on her hands and arms, the results of not moving quite fast enough to escape traps. She has a notch out of her left ear and an old pink scar running diagonally across her back from an old injury earned as a genin. She has a few old arrow wounds as well. Thick scarring on her abdomen is a remnant of a bear attack; the marks are still red. During the October Plot, Rin bit off the first joint of her right pinky. Her previous showiness has been replaced by more somber dress; she wears dark grey kimono, the traditional men's design but cut to fit a woman. Usually she wears black hakama, with a modified ANBU haori; her obi is persimmon-colored, and holds up a number of belt pouches and small inro boxes. The kimono is specially modified with a number of hidden pouches and pockets. Her ANBU mask is demonic and painted in indigo, signifying her former unit: TH.

Psych Profile said:
She's friendly, balanced, and most of all--sane. At least while not working, which is more than most can ask of the ANBU members. She has a good sense of humor and loves a laugh; she lacks shyness, occasionally says inappropriate (dirty) things, and isn't much inhibited by common morals. She believes in respect to elders and those higher up in the hierarchy, but she doesn't think that respect means quietly ignoring mistakes or wrong-doing. The station itself is much more worthy of respect than the person in her mind. She's deeply faithful to the god of Kumogakure, Raijin, and can't be insulted in any worse a way than to have her faith spit on. She enjoys her job--killing, as she says, is interesting, and so are investigating, tracking, talking, and spying. Competence is important to her, but so is the ability to have a conversation and otherwise act like a human being. Her anger, though uncommon, manifests itself unpredictably.

Compartmentalization is the name of the game as far as Rin is concerned; her shift in mindset between ordinary social situations and work are drastic, but not necessarily the mark of a disturbed mind. Instead, this mechanism allows her to shield herself from the brutality of the job and remain an efficient ANBU as well as a human individual.

Rin's mindset during missions is much less compromising than her every day behavior. She does not tolerate stupidity or disobedience, and takes the job quite seriously. In her mind, direct orders are not to be disobeyed even if she doesn't agree or doesn't understand them. She only has one flexible point on this, and it's one she keeps deeply buried, something not to be shared with anyone. In battle, she's fierce--her aim is inevitably to end things quickly, though not necessarily cleanly. Dirty tricks are not outside her purview--honorable battle in the job was something for samurai, not shinobi. Thus she's not at all uncomfortable with deceit.

Rin is quietly confident of her own competence and ethical center. She is comfortable in her own skin and has long since overcome her own fears and traumas regarding the work she did in her youth and her internal conflicts regarding Masao. She likes to think that she has a somewhat enlightened view of things, but she knows she's not exactly a genius, either, nor a priest. She is easy to talk to, but prone to long silences.

Biography said:
Rin's family runs a well-established old bakery in Kumogakure. Her father, Satou Ken'ichi, is a High Genin who didn't successfully complete his Chuunin exam; instead, he became a baker after marrying her mother, Yamada Sachiko, the only child of an old clan which had not had a ninja among its members in many generations. Rin has an older brother, Ryota, age 27; the two usually got along, helping run the family bakery. They lived with Yamada Sasayaki, Rin's maternal grandmother, and Satou Akemi, her paternal grandmother, in a generously-sized apartment over the bakery.

Rin had a peaceful childhood (or as much as it gets in a village full of ninja), and was a cheerful girl, if a little frighteningly dedicated to learning perfect cutting technique in the kitchen. Of course, Ryota, being eldest, had always been the one who would inherit the majority share of the bakery, which Rin believed meant that he'll get the whole store. While she loved her older brother, she didn't want to work for him her whole life--there were other things in the world to do or see and be aside from the life of a baker's daughter. There was a better alternative--Rin lived in a hidden village of ninja; she even sold them pastries, and her dad was a ninja, too. So Rin begged her parents and grandmothers to allow her to go to the ninja academy, and reluctantly (at least on her parents' part), they agreed--with one condition: if she didn't pass her chuunin exams, she got a very safe job close to the house. Sasayaki (Rin's maternal grandmother), however, was oddly very supportive of Rin's ambition.

At the start of her academy career, Rin met Masao, Tsuyoshi, and Airisuke at the top of one of the village's peaks at an old shrine she liked to visit. There, she hired herself on as Masao's bodyguard and manager, succumbing instantly to the pink-haired Genin's dubious charms like the little girl she was.

Rin graduated from the academy after only a few months there. Her forehead protector was won due to proper preparation: planning seemed to be Rin's strong suit. After she graduated, Rin received a mysterious packet of information from her grandmother, one paper possibly being a family tree. Soon thereafter she found out from Masao that it was an old language the people of Kumo used to speak, and started work honing her skills at Ancient Kumo. From that she could decipher that there were Santaru in her family tree.

On a follow-up mission regarding the runaways she encountered during her Genin exam, Rin found out that a friend of Masao's had run and died. It is during that mission that Rin makes her first kill, obliterating 3 bandits and realizing the power of her Santaru blood. Only a couple of days after that mission, she attended the funeral of Dyu Reikon, Masao's best friend, and met Hayata Shin, loudmouth academy student, and Santaru Ryuuto, whom she'd met once before. It was there that she requested the ANBU captain's mentorship in the development of her abilities as a Santaru; only a couple of days later, she more formally became his trainee in both the ways of Kumo's celebrated bloodline and their whispered-about ANBU.

In the time that followed, Rin sought employment outside of the bakery as her family life began to spoil with her announcement. She has crawled through the shady underbelly of Kumo's restaurant and food belly as a cook, making contacts with all manner of deviants both civilian and shinobi. Her AiT-ship was confirmed after an arranged kidnapping put her in the basement of Sileo for Masao's ANBU exam, where she was tortured and nearly killed. Not long afterwards, she herself went through the ANBU exam, wherein she killed a traitorous former High Genin, Kawaguchi Motoko, who had helped plan an assassination attempt against Santaru Ryuuto. After beating her in combat with the help of the Commander's wolf, Hikari, Rin interrogated and killed Kawaguchi, then hunted the rest of the cell. At the end of her exam, roughly 81 rebels were dead. A few days later, her maternal grandmother died and Rin was kicked out of her family home.

During the years that followed, Rin worked to distinguish herself as an ANBU of good repute and a broad repetoire of skills both martial and diplomatic. She prefers to use means other than combat to solve issues, though she'll cheerfully cross blades with the enemy, whoever that happens to be on any given day. Some time ago Rin left the country on sanctioned vacation. Due to various unfortunate circumstances (and also good opportunities), she was very late in returning, and then immediately was ordered into battle against sundry demonic forces to reunite with Masao and Captain Enjeru.

Operations were overall a success, and after a strangely tense meeting with their commanders, Rin and Masao received promotions. Of course, Rin has a lot of things pending with both of them... Once matters in the village were mostly settled, Rin began her work in honing her battle skills, challenging jounin to duels. Among them, she challenged Numa Kogane, whom some said had distinguished himself in battle by being a danger to everyone around him. Before the fight, she may have gotten a little drunk and sexually assaulted Masao, but hey, he agreed to be her second anyway. In order to appease her ancestors, she was to kill Numa in honorable single combat--but found in him too weak an opponent, and deloped, fortunately for her own sake. She took his eye. Not long after that, apparently driven mad by the shame, Numa attempted to defect; Rin was part of the force that met him at the gate, and she witnessed his execution by a demonic sennin not unlike the Kage. She would later take up the responsibility of returning the runner's body to its final resting place. Eventually her duels took her to Kimiko, who in a dramatic fight, managed to take Rin down with genjutsu... Rin was convinced that dueling will help her beat Hashigaki Rei, her disappeared friend, unspoken crush, and love rival.

Long story short, Rei refused to duel and Rin swore she wouldn't get out so easily next time. Soon, Rin found herself with too many other worries. She began research of a technique to spy on people of interest using Kogane Numa's eye and the help of Yuki Kimiko. After being cited for negligence and failure to report, she was stuck on a punitive undercover mission in the Legation to sniff out suspected treason. She also had the joy of several exams to give and also began illicitly taking on trainees, though she was only ranked a Lieutenant, not the requisite Captain. After taking on Hajime Tenchi, Tsurugi Kato, Tagiushi Moro, and Anumi, she left for Port Cirrus with Masao on a continuation of the Legation mission. In no time, they were deeply embroiled in the situation. The stress of the mission, plus their own interpersonal issues, nearly broke them both. Success was explosive and left her swimming in and out of consciousness due to chakra burnout, as that was the first time she used the full power of her bloodline. Masao retreated with her to Kagoshima, where she eventually made up with Kimura Rei.

They returned on fire with righteousness or something to the village, where Rei distributed flyers. Rin and Masao sped to the Sileo, where she confronted Diashi and they eventually battled Reiner-Geist along with her trainees. When the dust cleared, she received a promotion from the Raikage via radio; as the destroyer of the ANBU, her new task was to rebuild what she had wrecked. Days later, after some afternoon delight, she attacked Masao after he confided that he had had sex with his torturer at the Port. Eventually he retaliated with genjutsu of extreme power; she sent a few love letters from Raijin through his CNS and called for medical backup. During their estrangement, she concentrated on restoring the Santaru clan after much neglect, strengthening the ANBU corps, and providing a good role model for the other ANBU in the completion of their many new duties.

With the aid of the remaining ANBU, the branch was radically restructured and Rin became a Sennin. Her relationship with Masao gradually eased and warmed, becoming less of a source of torment and more a comfort. Years passed and she found herself crystallizing into a routine which gradually caused her more and more unease. A dream of death ended this stagnant stage: her honored ancestors communicated unequivocally that to remain would mean to cause civil war in Kumogakure, pitting her inevitably against those she had pledged to support. She would not turn against Shinbatsu, the man many saw as a god, including her lover. She had grown tired. Killing was a children's game.

Masao petitioned to allow them to retire peacefully; Shibatsu assented, and married Masao and Rin. They departed into the sunset, so to speak, had two children, and opened a restaurant.

Santaru Rin said:
S-Rank ANBU Sennin

Stats
Agi: 600
Sta: 600
Nin: 600
Gen: 600
Tai: 600
CC: 600
PL: 3,600
CL: 15
CAPPED

Kinjutsu: Chimera
Chimera CAs: Demonic Ancestry, Shadow Boxer, Reckless. (Switching from Nara to Reckless.)
I'll spend my CA points in the Dojo.

Custom Class - Veteran Grade
Tieguanshiyin
HP: (46+5+lvl) x stamina
CP: (31+5+lvl) x chakra control
Class Bonus: Chimera Kinjutsu
High: Melee Acc
Average: Gen Save, Gen DC, Evasion, Nin Acc
Low: Ranged Acc

E Rank 3 POINTS * 3 JUTSU = 9 CSP SPENT
Transformation - MASTER
Body Switch - MASTER
Basic Summoning - MASTER

D Rank 4 POINTS * 4 JUTSU = 16 CSP SPENT
Mask Summon - MASTER
Critical Exposure - MASTER
Snapshot - MASTER
Combination Transformation - MASTER

C Rank 5 POINTS * 20 JUTSU = 100 CSP SPENT
Chakra Sense - MASTER
Active Camo - MASTER
Mental Infiltration - MASTER
Jutsu Sealing - MASTER
Stunt Double - MASTER
Barrier - MASTER

Shoryuken - MASTER
Tatsumi Senpuu Kyaku - MASTER
Roaring Combination - MASTER
Grapple - MASTER

Shadow Dance - MASTER
Gather - MASTER
Barrage - MASTER

Heartbeat - MASTER
Deafen - MASTER
Soothing Voice - MASTER

Crippled - MASTER
Enfeeble - MASTER
Pain Killer - MASTER

Verse of Darkness - MASTER
1. Body Double - MASTER
2. Endless Gap - MASTER

3. Betrayal - MASTER
4. Fear - MASTER
5. Temple of Nirvana - MASTER

B Rank
6. Destroy Presence - MASTER
7. Intangible Passage - MASTER
8. Shadow Servant - MASTER
9. Searchlight - MASTER
10. Chakra Shield - MASTER
11. Chakra Blast - MASTER
12. Rasengan - MASTER

13. Anabolic Frenzy - MASTER
14. Concealed Steps - MASTER
15. Focused Assault - MASTER

16. Malevolent Shadows - MASTER
17. Diamond Dust - MASTER
18. Serenade of Sorrow - MASTER
19. Call of Enma - MASTER
20. Heavenly Inspiration - MASTER
21. Invisibility - MASTER
22. Trauma - MASTER
23. Mist of Deceit - MASTER
24. Curse of the Leper - MASTER
25. Charismatic Breakdown - MASTER

A Rank
26. Physical Imprisonment Seal - MASTER
27. Body Bind - MASTER
28. Flock of Shadows - MASTER
29. Black Blockade - MASTER
30. Perfected Rasengan - MASTER

31. Insatiable Hunger - MASTER
32. Devastating Aura - MASTER
33. Awakening - MASTER
34. Unleash - MASTER
35. Limit Break - MASTER

36. Mind Shatter - MASTER
37. Reflective Hallucination - MASTER
38. Utopia - MASTER

Kinjutsu 5 CSP SPENT
LVL 5 Gaze of Enslavement - MASTER 5 POINTS
39. LVL 7 Mystical Replication - MASTER
40. LVL 7 Infinite Abyss - MASTER
41. LVL 8 Dark Judgment - MASTER
42. LVL 9 Avatar of Divinity - MASTER

3 Capped Points Remaining from OCR

Free Major: Lightning
Free Minor: Wind

Santaru Rin · Oct 24, 2012

Uchiha Jenosaido said:
Type of NPC: dNPC - Gates
Name: Uchiha Jenosaido
Rank: Genin, ex-AiT
BL/CA: Uchiha
Age: 17
Appearance: Jeno is your typical bleached blond, pale-skinned, one-red-eyed Kumojin. A scion of the local Uchiha branch, he has the Sharingan. He is hollow-chested, temperamentally incapable of standing up straight, and somewhat underweight.
Personality: Perpetually the straight arrow in the comedy of life, Jeno is dour to the point of being a downer. It's a mystery if he's the type who never "gets" the joke or if he understands intellectually but just doesn't have a sense of humor. His #1 hero is Hayata Shin, and his favorite Hayata quote is "Interesting," which Jeno repeats whenever he isn't sure exactly about what's going on. Jeno is almost never really sure what's going on, so this is a constant fallback.

History: Jeno is the son of one of the families of the Kumo Uchiha branch. He was named for a great Kumo Uchiha hero of years past, but has failed to live up to expectations. He has an elder brother and a younger sister, but he is most often found with his hetero life partner, a Hyuuga cousin.

Despite ostensibly being of above average intelligence, Jeno is a complete slacker and, if not for his chakra potential, would have probably wound up a NEET. It's only his stolid nature which recommended him to the Genin rank in the first place, and the path of least resistance led to him graduating the Academy to comply with family wishes and then recruitment to AiT.

As Genin, Jeno and his cousin learned of a forbidden surgery which allowed the recipient of a Hyuuga or Uchiha eye to gain the bloodline's doujutsu techniques. Since the duo were already blood brothers, they attempted to perform amateur surgery and trade eyes. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The transplant was completely botched, and both idiots lost an eye. Now Jeno has a standard eye as a transplant. Sometimes he thinks it's a little wonky.

Fortunately for Jeno, his complete lack of ambition, enthusiasm, and work ethic caused him to be forgotten or ignored for so many training events and missions that he skipped that the ANBU Branch failed to notify him of his removal and he wound up with the Telegraph Office post as a "here shut the hell up already" assignment in perpetuity. That suits him fine, because fieldwork sucks.

Relation, if any, to PC: Masao might be making a Hyuuga dNPC. These guys are forever bros. Takaki Masao gave Jeno the Telegraph Office posting as a sympathy job.
Purpose of NPC: Jeno's real purpose is to receive and hold in trust for their recipients all telegraphs and messages sent to the Gates. He can also send pigeons or telegraphs, with basic encoding, upon request.

A sample of now-null topics:

Missions
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=328481">Dirty, Dirty Raikage</a> :: Kirureru and Rin team up to find a mysterious someone's stolen girlie mags. D-Rank
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=33535">Playtime</a> :: Rei, Dashi, and Rin are the au pairs of five little kids and must keep them safe and entertained. TL, D-Rank
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=342171#342171">Big Rock Candy Mountain</a> :: Rin picks flowers for an herbalist. Solo D-rank.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=33854">Salvaging the Wreckage</a> :: Rin and Rei search for an heirloom for an ex ANBU in a burnt out storage facility. D-Rank
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=34361">Elementary Diplomacy</a> :: Rin and Masao go on a mission... And kill people. TL, C-Rank
Myth Busting Parts <a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=359634">1</a>, <a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=362786">2</a>, <a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=384967">3</a> :: Rin, Akatake, Masao, and Rei visit a ghost shrine. TL, C-Rank
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=39118">Welcome to the Underworld</a> :: Rin, Masao, and Tama go underground for some character building and to evaluate Library security. C-Rank.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=47323">Body Retrieval</a> :: Hinote brings Rin along to recover the body of a runner she knew. TL, C-Rank.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=47958">Bombers in Kumo</a> :: Â Some mad ninja plotted to blow up 3 parts of Kumo. A-Rank.
Paperwork Ninja :: B-Rank, Solo.
Paperwork Ninja 2 :: A-Rank, TL.

Exams and Classes
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=29543">Battle Tactics</a> - Ringo :: Rin teams up with Hisakata Akatake and Fure Kirureru, lands a hit on Ringo-sensei, and gets knocked out. +5 bonus.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=31936">Who Wants to Learn? Going Deeper</a> - Unasi as Anari :: Another students versus teacher. +5 bonus.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=328221">Genin Exam</a> - Mitsukai as Senichi :: Rin busts a move and graduates.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=34101">Fog of War</a> - as Ibaiko :: Ibaiko Marui teaches about terrain.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=376896">Will to Live</a> - as Ibaiko :: Ibaiko teaches about the great outdoors and survival.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=398747">Faith Under Fire</a> :: ANBU exam. Around 80 die.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=38164">Rules of Engagement</a> - as Ibaiko :: Ibaiko kicks out an unruly student and teaches the rest about some nifty battle tricks.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=400665">The walk that took a lifetime</a> - as Ibaiko :: Ibaiko participates in the Genin/AiT exams of 3 boys.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=404807">Candid Camera Superstars</a> - as Ibaiko :: Ibaiko teaches some kids a little bit about genjutsu.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=46850">Covert Front Occult</a> - as Ibaiko :: Takahiro, Rai, and Hotaru are tested.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=49440">Survivalist Course for Rookies</a> - as Ibaiko :: Another generation takes the survival course.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=49295">You Get What You Need</a> :: Hachisuka Haruhiro's genin exam.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=55129">Masuku Genkaku: The Bell Tolls</a> :: Masuku takes her exam in the white tower.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=55464">Kuno: Ghost Tower</a> :: Kuno takes his exam in the white tower.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=55207">Smile and Beware I</a> - as Ibaiko :: Ibaiko gives Takara and Hotaru their assignment.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=56310">Smile and Beware II</a> :: Takara leaves with her charge.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=57513">Smile and Beware III</a> :: Takara defends her charge.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=57990">Blood History</a> - as Takayama Shimada :: Shimada teaches about ANBU history.

RPs
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=28711">Making Friends</a> :: Rin meets Kane Kobushi, Seto Boshoku, and Senku Yamuda at a ramen shop, gets a white rose, and watches a demo of jutsu.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=29826">Meditation on a Storm</a> :: Rin goes to the shrine and meets Takaki Masao, Tsuyoshi, and Airisuke, and then becomes Masao's bodyguard and manager. She follows him to the Ancient Forest.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=30129">Tree-Hugging</a> :: Rin follows Masao to the Ancient Forest and learns a new jutsu combination to use against boys.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=30287">Morning Fog</a> :: Rin runs up early in the morning and meets Kimura Rei and Santaru Ryuuto, plus reunites with Tsuyoshi.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=31828">Bullying at the Academy</a> :: Rin busts her face, henges into Ringo-sensei, lets Rei crashland on Masao, and gets busted imitating a jounin all in the name of justice.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=32295">Dirty Dirty Raikage</a> :: Rin meets the Raikage Takao for a mission.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=32534">The Graduate</a> :: Post-genin exam, Rin hangs out in the family bakery and is joined by Masao and Rei. Then they're tossed out... And Masao checks out Rin's AK.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=340298">Endless Trees</a> :: Hiking in the woods, Rin meets a wannabe shinobi called Miaki and reunites with Hisakata Akatake.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=33463">Inner Workings</a> :: Rin wanders by the fountain and finds Rei and Yamuda (whom she challenges) and meets Takai and Bishamon.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=33952">Half Fork, Half Spoon, All Fatal</a> :: Rin has her match with Yamuda.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=34543">The Flames of Death and Rebirth</a> :: At Dyu's funeral, Rin commiserates with Masao, has a run-in with Hayata Shin, and meets (again) Santaru Ryuuto.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=35195">The Sweet Life and the Quiet</a> :: Rin learns a little about her mentor to be, Santaru Ryuuto, and becomes an ANBU in training.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=363498">A Chance Twilight Meeting</a> :: Rin meets Taji Yuki, a chief med nin kunoichi.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=378700">Atem-Ruhe</a> :: Rin is captured and tortured as a part of Takaki Masao's ANBU exam.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=403475">As the Clouds Float High</a> :: Rin participates in a battle against the lord great high sennin Ringo, just for kicks.
Days Without Cloud :: Rin meets the sennin Karubin on his return and ends up participating in the apprehension of Kaguya Dashi.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=396515">Interrogation in the Sileo</a> :: After Dashi is captured, he's returned to the Sileo for interrogation, where Rin meets the Grand Executioner.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=40280">Self Improvement Is</a> :: Rin requests her passport and receives it.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=38886">A little something about somethin</a> :: Rin meets the story-teller and is drawn into a strange world...
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=40380">One Last Lotus-Eater</a> :: Rin meets Tamaki on patrol.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=41044">Delirious Sanity</a> :: Rin catches Rei and Masao in flagrante.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=45802">Tea Time, Everything Sandy & Other Related Matters</a> :: Rin returns from her long vacation to find the village under seige.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=46608">Blockade</a> :: Rin continues through the Aburame complex with Captain Enjeru's team.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=47831">Aburame Complex Boss</a> :: The library destruction becomes a habit.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=48237">Those Who Have Lost and Won</a> :: Masao and Rin report to Command, go through a strange interrogation, and get promotions.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=45136">The Flame's Center</a> :: Rin joins some ANBU and Ryuuto at an orphanage in one last battle...
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=48638">Delayed Charge</a> :: Masao finds Rin up at the old shrine they first met in. Two drunk ANBloo with serious issues... They work out one on the rocks, at least.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=46736">The Devil Is Not Enough</a> :: After the Aburame complex, Rin challenges Numa to the death, then takes his eye and delopes. Or was it the other way around?
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=46966">Good Bye</a> :: Rin meets Numa as he tries to escape the village, then witnesses his death.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=46309">Relaxation in the clouds</a> :: Rin lets someone in the gates, but he never comes in.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=47527">And the horse you rode in on</a> :: Rin turns someone away from the gates.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=47021">We Drink on the Job</a> :: Rin defeats Nyaoha Tamaki in single combat.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=47770">The Storm That I Believe In</a> :: Rin is defeated narrowly by Kimiko.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=48192">After the Duel</a> :: Rin buys Kimiko lunch, discusses Numa's eye, avoids Masao, and sees Shin again.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=49368">Long Time Coming</a> :: Rei refuses to duel Rin...
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=49139">Taking the Second Edge</a> :: Rin meets Daki for the first time since the demon invasion. She also encounters Nanjirou Zarato, Kitahoshi Ieyasu, and Shiga.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=50439">Boot Camp for the Future!</a> :: The demented Sennin Nara Ryuujin orchestrates a spectacle in the village square...
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=55177">The Old Ways of Revelation</a> :: Rin tries to request permission to learn Classical Kumo.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=55906">Stripping in the Rain</a> :: During a storm, Rin encounters Kazi and Inuzuka Suki on the verge of assaulting Yogi. Her presence defuses the potential conflict... Yogi = Ryuuzaki.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=55645">A Bored Genin</a> :: Rin meets Tsurugi Urami and Kato, and offers Kato testing for AiT status.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=56127">Into the Higher Ranks</a> :: Rin meets Hajime Tenchi and offers to test him as an AiT.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=55485">Into the world of TRIBES!</a> :: Guest-starring in a class, Rin offers some observations on the Santaru clan...
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=56220">Trip Like I Do</a> :: Anumi finds Rin and she informs him that he is to be tested for AiT.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=56219">The Dojo of Rolling Thunder</a> :: Rin gives Miaru Arashi and Tagiushi Moro their Genin exam.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=55804">Kahito sees her parents home</a> :: Rin is called in on the matter of foreign visitors.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=56043">The Policeman and the Teacup</a> :: Rin takes Nagura Naki, a Mist ANBU, to a restaurant to discuss pressing matters, and learns of Sarunishi.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=56421">Never Looking Back I</a> :: Rin warns Anumi, Mishikku, and Areku of death before taking them to the Lost City for their exam.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=56555">Never Looking Back II</a> :: They leave the village.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=56588">Never Looking Back II</a> :: She makes them battle royale...
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=56233">Paperwork Ninjas in Transit</a> :: Rin and Masao leave for Port Cirrus.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=58048">Royal Blue</a> :: Rin goes to a fete, forced by Santaru Kiske, and meets Korokesan (Haku scion) and Jeishi.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=56400">Eggs and Omlets</a> :: Rin tests Tsurugi Kato's guts in the haunted forest. AiT exam.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=57669">The Pieces Fall Off One-By-One</a> :: Rin finds the body of a dead Santaru.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=57865">Riddle me this...</a> :: Rin tests Tagiushi Moro's resolve after he breaks into her home. AiT exam.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=57886">Secret Beasts</a> :: Rin tests Hajime Tenchi's willingness in her garden. AiT exam.
<a href="http://www.ninpocho.com/naruto/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=576[/quote]

Santaru Rin · Oct 25, 2012

Really outdated stats:

<td width="375px" bgcolor=#646263 border=0 align=justify cellspacing=10px>STATISTICS

Agility: 444 +3 AR = 447
Stamina: 389
Ninjutsu: 409 +2 AR = 411
Taijutsu: 184 +5 AR = 189
Genjutsu: 318 +2 AR = 320
Chakra Control: 525%
Bloodline: 252%

Base Power Level: 2521
W/ Items PL: 2533
Character Level: 17
Base AP: 8.4
W/ Items AP: 8.44

Ao Guang Vet
HP: (50+lvl) x Stamina = 26063 + 575 = 26636
CP: (40+lvl) x Chakra Control = 29925

</td>

Santaru Rin · Oct 25, 2012

Outdated profile from OCR in April(???):

<table width="750px" cellpadding="10px" cellspacing="10px" border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff"><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#6600ff border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff" align=center cellspacing=10px colspan=2>BASICS</td></tr><tr><td width="125px" bgcolor=#646263 border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff" align=center cellspacing=10px><img src="http://www.vagranteden.com/forum/images/avatars/Virulain/anbu.jpg" alt="Rin's Avatar"></td>
<td width="625px" bgcolor=#646263 border=0 align=justify cellspacing=10px>Sex: Female<br><br>Age: 22<br><br>Alignment: True Neutral<br><br>Status: ANBU, Grand Commander.</td></tr></table><table width="750px" cellpadding="10px" cellspacing="10px" border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff"><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#6600ff border=0 align=center cellspacing=10px>APPEARANCE</td></tr><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#646263 border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff" align=justify cellspacing=10px>Height/Weight: 5'10", +/- 140lbs.<br><br>Eyes: Rin has large, dark bluish-gray eyes with heavy lashes.<br><br>Hair: Rin's natural hair color is pale blond, akin to old sun-bleached straw. Natural color, however, is irrelevant. It's currently dyed black. She keeps it short for combat reasons and it has a tendency to fly away; stylishly mussy, one might say.<br><br>General Appearance: Rin is tall and slim. Her vicious training program has given her a wirey build; she has a modest bust and bum, for those interested pervs. She has a healthy glow, though sometimes the skin beneath her eyes is bruised from lack of sleep--but not often, as she's careful with taking care of her body. Her skin would be pale but is constantly tanned, giving it that longed-after honey hue. She's generally smiling nice and calmly, but she's also a troublemaker, and it shows in thin pale scars on her hands and arms, the results of not moving quite fast enough to escape traps. She has a notch out of her left ear and an old pink scar running diagonally across her back from an old injury earned as a genin. She has a few old arrow wounds as well. Thick scarring on her abdomen is a remnant of a bear attack; the marks are still red. During the October Plot, Rin bit off the first joint of her right pinky. Her previous showiness has been replaced by more somber dress; she wears dark grey kimono, the traditional men's design but cut to fit a woman. Usually she wears black hakama, with a modified ANBU haori; her obi is persimmon-colored, and holds up a number of belt pouches and small inro boxes. The kimono is specially modified with a number of hidden pouches and pockets. Her ANBU mask is demonic and painted in indigo, signifying her former unit: TH.</td></tr></table> <table width="750px" cellpadding="10px" cellspacing="10px" border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff"><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#6600ff border=0 align=center cellspacing=10px>PERSONALITY</td></tr><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#646263 border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff" align=justify cellspacing=10px>She's friendly, balanced, and most of all--sane. At least while not working, which is more than most can ask of the ANBU members. She has a good sense of humor and loves a laugh; she lacks shyness, occasionally says inappropriate (dirty) things, and isn't much inhibited by common morals. She believes in respect to elders and those higher up in the hierarchy, but she doesn't think that respect means quietly ignoring mistakes or wrong-doing. The station itself is much more worthy of respect than the person in her mind. She's deeply faithful to the god of Kumogakure, Raijin, and can't be insulted in any worse a way than to have her faith spit on. She enjoys her job--killing, as she says, is interesting, and so are investigating, tracking, talking, and spying. Competence is important to her, but so is the ability to have a conversation and otherwise act like a human being. Her anger, though uncommon, manifests itself unpredictably.

Compartmentalization is the name of the game as far as Rin is concerned; her shift in mindset between ordinary social situations and work are drastic, but not necessarily the mark of a disturbed mind. Instead, this mechanism allows her to shield herself from the brutality of the job and remain an efficient ANBU as well as a human individual.

Rin's mindset during missions is much less compromising than her every day behavior. She does not tolerate stupidity or disobedience, and takes the job quite seriously. In her mind, direct orders are not to be disobeyed even if she doesn't agree or doesn't understand them. She only has one flexible point on this, and it's one she keeps deeply buried, something not to be shared with anyone. In battle, she's fierce--her aim is inevitably to end things quickly, though not necessarily cleanly. Dirty tricks are not outside her purview--honorable battle in the job was something for samurai, not shinobi. Thus she's not at all uncomfortable with deceit.

Internally, problems with her family and conflicting emotions surrounding Masao and Rei make navigating her private life difficult. These emotions are compounded by the regret she feels in regard to her disappearance during her vacation and missions of dubious moral quality. Several deaths weigh heavily on her, though when acting out, she is in general quite flippant about her record of successful kills and mission completions. Though she has reconciled with Rei over her seduction of Masao, Rin still does not trust her lover. Currently, they are quits.

When hella drunk, a wholly different side of Rin emerges, loosening the inhibitions she wears in public and showing a far less balanced mind behind the usual persona. It reveals an inner self laboring under guilt and doubt, unlike her usual untouchable persona. Alcohol characteristically destroys her impulse control as well, letting out a creature by turns violent, grieving, or affectionate, with little warning between swings. In a word, drunk Rin = psycho. Her prior budding alcoholism has been reversed by situational necessity: i.e. promotion.</td></tr></table><table width="750px" cellpadding="10px" cellspacing="10px" border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff"><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#6600ff border=0 align=center cellspacing=10px>HISTORY</td></tr><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#646263 border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff" align=justify cellspacing=10px>Rin's family runs a well-established old bakery in Kumogakure. Her father, Satou Ken'ichi, is a High Genin who didn't successfully complete his Chuunin exam; instead, he became a baker after marrying her mother, Yamada Sachiko, the only child of an old clan which had not had a ninja among its members in many generations. Rin has an older brother, Ryota, age 27; the two usually got along, helping run the family bakery. They lived with Yamada Sasayaki, Rin's maternal grandmother, and Satou Akemi, her paternal grandmother, in a generously-sized apartment over the bakery.

Rin had a peaceful childhood (or as much as it gets in a village full of ninja), and was a cheerful girl, if a little frighteningly dedicated to learning perfect cutting technique in the kitchen. Of course, Ryota, being eldest, had always been the one who would inherit the majority share of the bakery, which Rin believed meant that he'll get the whole store. While she loved her older brother, she didn't want to work for him her whole life--there were other things in the world to do or see and be aside from the life of a baker's daughter. There was a better alternative--Rin lived in a hidden village of ninja; she even sold them pastries, and her dad was a ninja, too. So Rin begged her parents and grandmothers to allow her to go to the ninja academy, and reluctantly (at least on her parents' part), they agreed--with one condition: if she didn't pass her chuunin exams, she got a very safe job close to the house. Sasayaki (Rin's maternal grandmother), however, was oddly very supportive of Rin's ambition.

At the start of her academy career, Rin met Masao, Tsuyoshi, and Airisuke at the top of one of the village's peaks at an old shrine she liked to visit. There, she hired herself on as Masao's bodyguard and manager, succumbing instantly to the pink-haired Genin's dubious charms like the little girl she was.

Rin graduated from the academy after only a few months there. Her forehead protector was won due to proper preparation: planning seemed to be Rin's strong suit. After she graduated, Rin received a mysterious packet of information from her grandmother, one paper possibly being a family tree. Soon thereafter she found out from Masao that it was an old language the people of Kumo used to speak, and started work honing her skills at Ancient Kumo. From that she could decipher that there were Santaru in her family tree.

On a follow-up mission regarding the runaways she encountered during her Genin exam, Rin found out that a friend of Masao's had run and died. It is during that mission that Rin makes her first kill, obliterating 3 bandits and realizing the power of her Santaru blood. Only a couple of days after that mission, she attended the funeral of Dyu Reikon, Masao's best friend, and met Hayata Shin, loudmouth academy student, and Santaru Ryuuto, whom she'd met once before. It was there that she requested the ANBU captain's mentorship in the development of her abilities as a Santaru; only a couple of days later, she more formally became his trainee in both the ways of Kumo's celebrated bloodline and their whispered-about ANBU.

In the time that followed, Rin sought employment outside of the bakery as her family life began to spoil with her announcement. She has crawled through the shady underbelly of Kumo's restaurant and food belly as a cook, making contacts with all manner of deviants both civilian and shinobi. Her AiT-ship was confirmed after an arranged kidnapping put her in the basement of Sileo for Masao's ANBU exam, where she was tortured and nearly killed. Not long afterwards, she herself went through the ANBU exam, wherein she killed a traitorous former High Genin, Kawaguchi Motoko, who had helped plan an assassination attempt against Santaru Ryuuto. After beating her in combat with the help of the Commander's wolf, Hikari, Rin interrogated and killed Kawaguchi, then hunted the rest of the cell. At the end of her exam, roughly 81 rebels were dead. A few days later, her maternal grandmother died and Rin was kicked out of her family home.

During the years that followed, Rin worked to distinguish herself as an ANBU of good repute and a broad repetoire of skills both martial and diplomatic. She prefers to use means other than combat to solve issues, though she'll cheerfully cross blades with the enemy, whoever that happens to be on any given day. Some time ago Rin left the country on sanctioned vacation. Due to various unfortunate circumstances (and also good opportunities), she was very late in returning, and then immediately was ordered into battle against sundry demonic forces to reunite with Masao and Captain Enjeru. Operations were overall a success, and after a strangely tense meeting with their commanders, Rin and Masao received promotions. Of course, Rin has a lot of things pending with both of them... Once matters in the village were mostly settled, Rin began her work in honing her battle skills, challenging jounin to duels. Among them, she challenged Numa Kogane, whom some said had distinguished himself in battle by being a danger to everyone around him. Before the fight, she may have gotten a little drunk and sexually assaulted Masao, but hey, he agreed to be her second anyway. In order to appease her ancestors, she was to kill Numa in honorable single combat--but found in him too weak an opponent, and deloped, fortunately for her own sake. She took his eye. Not long after that, apparently driven mad by the shame, Numa attempted to defect; Rin was part of the force that met him at the gate, and she witnessed his execution by a demonic sennin not unlike the Kage. She would later take up the responsibility of returning the runner's body to its final resting place. Eventually her duels took her to Kimiko, who in a dramatic fight, managed to take Rin down with genjutsu... Rin was convinced that dueling will help her beat Hashigaki Rei, her disappeared friend, unspoken crush, and love rival...

Long story short, Rei refused to duel and Rin swore she wouldn't get out so easily next time. Soon, Rin found herself with too many other worries. She began research of a technique to spy on people of interest using Kogane Numa's eye and the help of Yuki Kimiko. After being cited for negligence and failure to report, she was stuck on a punitive undercover mission in the Legation to sniff out suspected treason. She also had the joy of several exams to give and also began illicitly taking on trainees, though she was only ranked a Lieutenant, not the requisite Captain. After taking on Hajime Tenchi, Tsurugi Kato, Tagiushi Moro, and Anumi, she left for Port Cirrus with Masao on a continuation of the Legation mission. In no time, they were deeply embroiled in the situation. The stress of the mission, plus their own interpresonal issues, nearly broke them both. Success was explosive and left her swimming in and out of consciousness due to chakra burnout, as that was the first time she used the full power of her bloodline. Masao retreated with her to Kagoshima, where she eventually made up with Kimura Rei...

They returned on fire with righteousness or something to the village, where Rei distributed flyers. Rin and Masao sped to the Sileo, where she confronted Diashi and they eventually battled Reiner-Geist along with her trainees. When the dust cleared, she received a promotion from the Raikage via radio; as the destroyer of the ANBU, Â her new task was to rebuild what she had wrecked. Days later, after some afternoon delight, she attacked Masao after he confided that he had had sex with his torturer at the Port. Eventually he retaliated with genjutsu of extreme power; she sent a few love letters from Raijin through his CNS and called for medical backup. She has not seen him since. In the interim, she has concentrated on restoring the Santaru clan after much neglect, strengthening the ANBU corps, and providing a good role model for the other ANBU in the completion of their many new duties.</td></tr></table><table width="750px" cellpadding="10px" cellspacing="10px" border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff" bordercolor=#333366><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#6600ff border=0 align=center cellspacing=10px>RELATIONSHIPS</td></tr><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#646263 border=0 align=justify cellspacing=10px>

Airisuke - Gives Rin the creeps. Retired, hospital Sennin.
Uchiha Sei - Man-eater, causer of prison-time for Masao.
Ringo - Annoying but pretty sennin. Died as a nuke after returning to the Gates, killed by Rokuro.
Nara Ryuujin - Sennin, retired. Gives Rin the creeps. Killed Numa Kogane, interfering with his capture by herself and Masao. Banished her fellow ANBU, Akira Saito.
Imei Aio (NPC) - ANBU Lt. who tortured her and Masao once upon a time.
Reiner Geist (NPC) - ANBU Vice Commander, traitor. A true sadist.
Takaki Masao - IA Captain-Commander. Former lover, he hit her with Terror after she assaulted him.
Kiske - Former Santaru head. Traitor, deceased.
Jinbatou (Sarunishi) - ANBU "Grand Executioner." Object of her total hatred. Whereabouts unknown, presumed missing.

Hayata Shin - Tokujou. Rin used to hate him, but those feelings have faded.
Senku Yamuda - Guy Rin sparred with when she was 9. Met in her academy days. Whereabouts unknown.
Reikon Dyu - Guy she helped rescue once. Died a runner.
Hisakata Akatake - One time teammate, cool guy she'd like to hang with more. Whereabouts unknown.
Senichi (NPC) - Test giver.
Rai (NPC) - Medical researcher, giver of the mission that led to Rin's blooding.
Dashi - ANBU, deceased. Went on a mission with him. Strange, but alright guy. She caught him when he went nuts... Then was killed.
Takao - Retired Raikage, gave Rin a mission once and scared her.
Taji Yuki - A female med-nin Rin is interested in. Whereabouts unknown.
Banteki Jenosaido - AKA Genocide Bob.
Numa Kogane - Someone she intended to sacrifice to the spirits. Died a runner.
Terora Daki - An ANBU captain. Kind of annoying, but cute; Rin nearly killed her during the invasion. Promoted during invasion, now heads Black Aces.
Masashiku Tama, "Birdeater." - An AiT she promoted to Corporal.
Uirianzu Mishikku - Would-be AiT. Savant.
Anumi - Her AiT. Arrogant boy.
Hoshiko Gin - AiT.
Usani Chikan - AiT.
Yomoko - AiT. Haku.
Komeka Areku - Would-be AiT. Washout. Cousin.
Saito Akira - An ANBU. Banished by Nara Ryuujin, Sennin. She participated in a mission with Akira before. Currently in Cloud.
North Star - ANBU captain. She fought at his side during the demon invasion and again during a mission to save the village from terrorists. Promoted by him.
Nyaoha Tamaki - jounin Rin beat in a duel. Friendly chick. Whereabouts unknown.
Enjeru - ANBU captain-commander, retired. Irrational guy she'd like to fight sometime.
Jatsuo - ANBU captain-commander. Enjeru's brother. Seems a little dangerous.
Arashi Tenma - Med-nin. A cousin. Met at the first Santaru meeting.
Hitomi - Jounin. A cousin. Met at the first Santaru meeting.
Ishida (NPC) - Civilian conman involved in the ANBU coverup. Did sex with him a few times, made a deal to kill his brother (Ashitomenofuin) and for him to kill Masao.
Ashitomenofuin (NPC) - Ret. ANBU, Legation leader. Dead. Headed up the Legation side of the ANBU coverup. KIA in Port Cirrus.
Tsurugi Urami - Tsurugi Kato's younger brother, she met him in a class.
Oni Jeishi - Met him in passing at a fancy party. Whereabouts unknown.
Suno Korokesan - met the Haku scion in passing at a fancy party.
Santaru Shiga - Strange dude she met in a park.
Kitahoshi Ieyasu - ANBU corporal, wannabe she met once.
Nanjirou Zarato - Deceased. Genin with concerns.
Shuzuku Uten (NPC) - Academy sensei she guested for once.
Nagura Naki - a Mist ANBU. Discussed Sarunishi with him.
Souru - Some dude she met at the fountain once, liked to tell tales.
Oishi Yogi/Ryuuzaki - Strange guy she shared sake with once and got info from regarding Sarunishi.

Tsuyoshi - A cool, if scary-looking, guy who likes fire too much. Whereabouts unknown.
Fure Kirureru - Can't stick with a plan, thinks he's pretty, but a good guy. Whereabouts unknown.
Mojo - Saito's monkey. Likes to groom her head, wears hysterical monkey armor. With Akira, somewhere.
Diashi - ANBU captain.
Hayashimizu - Jounin. A cousin, she met him at the first clan meeting.

Tatsu - Commander of the ANBU. Dead.
Hajime Tenchi - trainee. Went with her in search of Reiner Geist. A cousin.
Tsurugi Kato - trainee, Corporal. Went with her in search of Reiner Geist. Uchiha.
Tagiushi Moro - trainee, Corporal. Went with her in search of Reiner Geist. A cousin.

Kimura Rei - Closest friend next to Masao. Gave her shelter after the ordeal in Port Cirrus.
Yuki Kimiko (now an NPC) - Med nin chief and cousin.

Ken'ichi (NPC) - Father.
Sachiko (NPC) - Mother.
Ryota (NPC) - Older brother.
Sasayaki (NPC) - Grandmother. Died while Rin was in ANBU training.
Akemi (NPC) - Grandmother.
Santaru Ryuuto - Her ANBU-sensei and commander; she considers him family. Current whereabouts: Wind Country.

Takaki Masao</p>

</td></tr></table><table width="750px" cellpadding="10px" cellspacing="10px" border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff" bordercolor=#333366><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#6600ff border=0 align=center cellspacing=10px>BATTLE CONSTANTS</td></tr><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#646263 border=0 align=justify cellspacing=10px>

Santaru

Lightning Manipulation Rank 3 :: -40% Chakra cost to non-BL Lightning Jutsu
Lightning Body Rank 3 :: +25% Damage to non-BL Lightning Jutsu
Surging Presence ::
+ Unarmed strike against them take 10 lightning damage per 10BLC over 100 the Santaru has.
+ Remaining in contact with them deals 10 lightning damage/round per 10BLC over 100 the Santaru has.
+ Attacking the Santaru with metallic weapons takes 20 lightning damage per 10BLC over 100 the Santaru has.

Abilities

Strategy ::
+ Rin has a higher chance to succeed with complex plans.
+ Three prepared slots.
Insight II ::
+ 10% Auto-evade.
+ Dodge/defense bonus against some attacks.
+ 2 Accuracy bonus.
+ Higher chance to see through an opponent's strategy and avoid ambushes and surprise attacks.
Handseal Expert :: -.5 AP cost for Jutsu with handseals.
Jutsu Mastery :: -10% CP for mastered Jutsu.

Equipment

Earthen Wrist x2 :: +20% Damage to Lightning and Earth Jutsu.
Speed Sandals :: +10% Movement speed.
Muffler :: +75 HP, -50 Ice Damage.

Character Class

Ao Guang[V] ::
+ 2 Gen Save
+ 1 Accuracy.
+ High Gen Save
= Average Evasion, Genjutsu DC, Spell Accuracy, Melee Accuracy.
- Low Melee Accuracy.

</td></tr></table><table width="750px" cellpadding="10px" cellspacing="10px" border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff"><tr><td width="750px" colspan=2 bgcolor=#6600ff border=0 align=center>SPECS</td></tr><tr><td width="375px" bgcolor=#646263 border=0 align=justify cellspacing=10px>EQUIPMENT

Head: ANBU Mask +75HP+2NIN/GEN/TAI
Armor 1: ANBU Robe +100HP+1AGI
Armor 2: ANBU Breastplate +200HP+2AGI
Feet: Combat Boots +50HP+15KickDmg
Hands: Ninja-to
Extra: Forehead Protector +75HP
Extra: Muffler +75HP-50IceDmg
Accessory 1: Earthen Wrist +10%Earth/Lightning Jutsu
Accessory 2: Earthen Wrist +10%Earth/Lightning Jutsu
Item Slot 1: Smoke Bomb
Item Slot 2: Smoke Bomb
Item Slot 3: Parasol
Parasol: Senbon x120 [Poisoned]
Parasol: Senbon x120 [Poisoned]
Special: Kawarimi Target
Special: Projectile Holster x2
Special: Belt Pouch
Special: Headset
Special: Sheath
Projectile Holster: Kunai x15
Projectile Holster: Shuriken x20
Projectile Holster: Kunai x15
Projectile Holster: Explosive Note
Belt Pouch: Black Lotus Poison
Belt Pouch: Explosive Note
Sheath: Ninja-to [Poisoned]
ANBU Robe: Note {Remote}
Prepared Slot 1: Kunai w/ Explosive Note {Remote}
Prepared Slot 2: Kunai w/ Explosive Note {Remote}
Prepared Slot 3: Kunai w/ Explosive Note {Remote}

</td>
</tr>

[<table width="750px" cellpadding="10px" cellspacing="10px" border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff"><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#6600ff border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff" align=center cellspacing=10px colspan=2>BASICS</td></tr><tr><td width="125px" bgcolor=#646263 border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff" align=center cellspacing=10px><img src="http://www.vagranteden.com/forum/images/avatars/Virulain/anbu.jpg" alt="Rin's Avatar"></td><td width="625px" bgcolor=#646263 border=0 align=justify cellspacing=10px>Sex: Female<br><br>Age: 46<br><br>Alignment: True Neutral<br><br>Status: ANBU, Grand Commander.</td></tr></table><table width="750px" cellpadding="10px" cellspacing="10px" border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff"><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#6600ff border=0 align=center cellspacing=10px>APPEARANCE</td></tr><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#646263 border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff" align=justify cellspacing=10px>Height/Weight: 5'10", +/- 140lbs.<br><br>Eyes: Rin has large, dark bluish-gray eyes with heavy lashes.<br><br>Hair: Rin's natural hair color is pale blond, akin to old sun-bleached straw. Natural color, however, is irrelevant. It's currently dyed black. She keeps it short for combat reasons and it has a tendency to fly away; stylishly mussy, one might say.<br><br>General Appearance: Rin is tall and slim. Her vicious training program has given her a wirey build; she has a modest bust and bum, for those interested pervs. She has a healthy glow, though sometimes the skin beneath her eyes is bruised from lack of sleep--but not often, as she's careful with taking care of her body. Her skin would be pale but is constantly tanned, giving it that longed-after honey hue. She's generally smiling nice and calmly, but she's also a troublemaker, and it shows in thin, pale scars on her hands and arms, the results of not moving quite fast enough to escape traps. She has a notch out of her left ear and an old pink scar running diagonally across her back from an old injury earned as a genin. She has a few old arrow wounds as well. Thick scarring on her abdomen is a remnant of a bear attack; the marks are still red. During the October Plot, Rin bit off the first joint of her right pinky. Her previous showiness has been replaced by more somber dress; she wears dark grey kimono, the traditional men's design but cut to fit a woman. Usually she wears black hakama, with a modified ANBU haori; her obi is persimmon-colored, and holds up a number of belt pouches and small inro boxes. The kimono is specially modified with a number of hidden pouches and pockets. Her ANBU mask is demonic and painted in indigo, signifying her former unit: TH.</td></tr></table> <table width="750px" cellpadding="10px" cellspacing="10px" border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff"><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#6600ff border=0 align=center cellspacing=10px>PERSONALITY</td></tr><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#646263 border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff" align=justify cellspacing=10px>She's friendly, balanced, and most of all--sane. At least while not working, which is more than most can ask of the ANBU members. She has a good sense of humor and loves a laugh; she lacks shyness, occasionally says inappropriate (dirty) things, and isn't much inhibited by common morals. She believes in respect to elders and those higher up in the hierarchy, but she doesn't think that respect means quietly ignoring mistakes or wrong-doing. The station itself is much more worthy of respect than the person in her mind. She's deeply faithful to the god of Kumogakure, Raijin, and can't be insulted in any worse a way than to have her faith spit on. She enjoys her job--killing, as she says, is interesting, and so are investigating, tracking, talking, and spying. Competence is important to her, but so is the ability to have a conversation and otherwise act like a human being. Her anger, though uncommon, manifests itself unpredictably.

Compartmentalization is the name of the game as far as Rin is concerned; her shift in mindset between ordinary social situations and work are drastic, but not necessarily the mark of a disturbed mind. Instead, this mechanism allows her to shield herself from the brutality of the job and remain an efficient ANBU as well as a human individual.

Rin's mindset during missions is much less compromising than her every day behavior. She does not tolerate stupidity or disobedience, and takes the job quite seriously. In her mind, direct orders are not to be disobeyed even if she doesn't agree or doesn't understand them. She only has one flexible point on this, and it's one she keeps deeply buried, something not to be shared with anyone. In battle, she's fierce--her aim is inevitably to end things quickly, though not necessarily cleanly. Dirty tricks are not outside her purview--honorable battle in the job was something for samurai, not shinobi. Thus she's not at all uncomfortable with deceit.

Internally, problems with her family and conflicting emotions surrounding Masao and Rei make navigating her private life difficult. These emotions are compounded by the regret she feels in regard to her disappearance during her vacation and missions of dubious moral quality. Several deaths weigh heavily on her, though when acting out, she is in general quite flippant about her record of successful kills and mission completions. Though she has reconciled with Rei over her seduction of Masao, Rin still does not trust her lover. Currently, they are quits.

When hella drunk, a wholly different side of Rin emerges, loosening the inhibitions she wears in public and showing a far less balanced mind behind the usual persona. It reveals an inner self laboring under guilt and doubt, unlike her usual untouchable persona. Alcohol characteristically destroys her impulse control as well, letting out a creature by turns violent, grieving, or affectionate, with little warning between swings. In a word, drunk Rin = psycho. Her prior budding alcoholism has been reversed by situational necessity: i.e. promotion.</td></tr></table><table width="750px" cellpadding="10px" cellspacing="10px" border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff"><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#6600ff border=0 align=center cellspacing=10px>HISTORY</td></tr><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#646263 border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff" align=justify cellspacing=10px>Rin's family runs a well-established old bakery in Kumogakure. Her father, Satou Ken'ichi, is a High Genin who didn't successfully complete his Chuunin exam; instead, he became a baker after marrying her mother, Yamada Sachiko, the only child of an old clan which had not had a ninja among its members in many generations. Rin has an older brother, Ryota, age 27; the two usually got along, helping run the family bakery. They lived with Yamada Sasayaki, Rin's maternal grandmother, and Satou Akemi, her paternal grandmother, in a generously-sized apartment over the bakery.

Rin had a peaceful childhood (or as much as it gets in a village full of ninja), and was a cheerful girl, if a little frighteningly dedicated to learning perfect cutting technique in the kitchen. Of course, Ryota, being eldest, had always been the one who would inherit the majority share of the bakery, which Rin believed meant that he'll get the whole store. While she loved her older brother, she didn't want to work for him her whole life--there were other things in the world to do or see and be aside from the life of a baker's daughter. There was a better alternative--Rin lived in a hidden village of ninja; she even sold them pastries, and her dad was a ninja, too. So Rin begged her parents and grandmothers to allow her to go to the ninja academy, and reluctantly (at least on her parents' part), they agreed--with one condition: if she didn't pass her chuunin exams, she got a very safe job close to the house. Sasayaki (Rin's maternal grandmother), however, was oddly very supportive of Rin's ambition.

At the start of her academy career, Rin met Masao, Tsuyoshi, and Airisuke at the top of one of the village's peaks at an old shrine she liked to visit. There, she hired herself on as Masao's bodyguard and manager, succumbing instantly to the pink-haired Genin's dubious charms like the little girl she was.

Rin graduated from the academy after only a few months there. Her forehead protector was won due to proper preparation: planning seemed to be Rin's strong suit. After she graduated, Rin received a mysterious packet of information from her grandmother, one paper possibly being a family tree. Soon thereafter she found out from Masao that it was an old language the people of Kumo used to speak, and started work honing her skills at Ancient Kumo. From that she could decipher that there were Santaru in her family tree.

On a follow-up mission regarding the runaways she encountered during her Genin exam, Rin found out that a friend of Masao's had run and died. It is during that mission that Rin makes her first kill, obliterating 3 bandits and realizing the power of her Santaru blood. Only a couple of days after that mission, she attended the funeral of Dyu Reikon, Masao's best friend, and met Hayata Shin, loudmouth academy student, and Santaru Ryuuto, whom she'd met once before. It was there that she requested the ANBU captain's mentorship in the development of her abilities as a Santaru; only a couple of days later, she more formally became his trainee in both the ways of Kumo's celebrated bloodline and their whispered-about ANBU.

In the time that followed, Rin sought employment outside of the bakery as her family life began to spoil with her announcement. She has crawled through the shady underbelly of Kumo's restaurant and food belly as a cook, making contacts with all manner of deviants both civilian and shinobi. Her AiT-ship was confirmed after an arranged kidnapping put her in the basement of Sileo for Masao's ANBU exam, where she was tortured and nearly killed. Not long afterwards, she herself went through the ANBU exam, wherein she killed a traitorous former High Genin, Kawaguchi Motoko, who had helped plan an assassination attempt against Santaru Ryuuto. After beating her in combat with the help of the Commander's wolf, Hikari, Rin interrogated and killed Kawaguchi, then hunted the rest of the cell. At the end of her exam, roughly 81 rebels were dead. A few days later, her maternal grandmother died and Rin was kicked out of her family home.

During the years that followed, Rin worked to distinguish herself as an ANBU of good repute and a broad repetoire of skills both martial and diplomatic. She prefers to use means other than combat to solve issues, though she'll cheerfully cross blades with the enemy, whoever that happens to be on any given day. Some time ago Rin left the country on sanctioned vacation. Due to various unfortunate circumstances (and also good opportunities), she was very late in returning, and then immediately was ordered into battle against sundry demonic forces to reunite with Masao and Captain Enjeru.

Operations were overall a success, and after a strangely tense meeting with their commanders, Rin and Masao received promotions. Of course, Rin has a lot of things pending with both of them... Once matters in the village were mostly settled, Rin began her work in honing her battle skills, challenging jounin to duels. Among them, she challenged Numa Kogane, whom some said had distinguished himself in battle by being a danger to everyone around him. Before the fight, she may have gotten a little drunk and sexually assaulted Masao, but hey, he agreed to be her second anyway. In order to appease her ancestors, she was to kill Numa in honorable single combat--but found in him too weak an opponent, and deloped, fortunately for her own sake. She took his eye. Not long after that, apparently driven mad by the shame, Numa attempted to defect; Rin was part of the force that met him at the gate, and she witnessed his execution by a demonic sennin not unlike the Kage. She would later take up the responsibility of returning the runner's body to its final resting place. Eventually her duels took her to Kimiko, who in a dramatic fight, managed to take Rin down with genjutsu... Rin was convinced that dueling will help her beat Hashigaki Rei, her disappeared friend, unspoken crush, and love rival.

Long story short, Rei refused to duel and Rin swore she wouldn't get out so easily next time. Soon, Rin found herself with too many other worries. She began research of a technique to spy on people of interest using Kogane Numa's eye and the help of Yuki Kimiko. After being cited for negligence and failure to report, she was stuck on a punitive undercover mission in the Legation to sniff out suspected treason. She also had the joy of several exams to give and also began illicitly taking on trainees, though she was only ranked a Lieutenant, not the requisite Captain. After taking on Hajime Tenchi, Tsurugi Kato, Tagiushi Moro, and Anumi, she left for Port Cirrus with Masao on a continuation of the Legation mission. In no time, they were deeply embroiled in the situation. The stress of the mission, plus their own interpersonal issues, nearly broke them both. Success was explosive and left her swimming in and out of consciousness due to chakra burnout, as that was the first time she used the full power of her bloodline. Masao retreated with her to Kagoshima, where she eventually made up with Kimura Rei.

They returned on fire with righteousness or something to the village, where Rei distributed flyers. Rin and Masao sped to the Sileo, where she confronted Diashi and they eventually battled Reiner-Geist along with her trainees. When the dust cleared, she received a promotion from the Raikage via radio; as the destroyer of the ANBU, her new task was to rebuild what she had wrecked. Days later, after some afternoon delight, she attacked Masao after he confided that he had had sex with his torturer at the Port. Eventually he retaliated with genjutsu of extreme power; she sent a few love letters from Raijin through his CNS and called for medical backup. She has not seen him since. In the interim, she has concentrated on restoring the Santaru clan after much neglect, strengthening the ANBU corps, and providing a good role model for the other ANBU in the completion of their many new duties.</td></tr></table><table width="750px" cellpadding="10px" cellspacing="10px" border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff" bordercolor=#333366><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#6600ff border=0 align=center cellspacing=10px>RELATIONSHIPS</td></tr><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#646263 border=0 align=justify cellspacing=10px>

Airisuke - Gives Rin the creeps. Retired, hospital Sennin.
Uchiha Sei - Man-eater, causer of prison-time for Masao.
Ringo - Annoying but pretty sennin. Died as a nuke after returning to the Gates, killed by Rokuro.
Nara Ryuujin - Sennin, retired. Gives Rin the creeps. Killed Numa Kogane, interfering with his capture by herself and Masao. Banished her fellow ANBU, Akira Saito.
Imei Aio (NPC) - ANBU Lt. who tortured her and Masao once upon a time.
Reiner Geist (NPC) - ANBU Vice Commander, traitor. A true sadist.
Akemi (NPC) - Grandmother. Deceased.

Takaki Masao</p>

Gray = Cloud Villager
Green = Leaf Villager
Blue = Mist Villager
Orange = Sand Villager
Red = Missing

</td></tr></table><table width="750px" cellpadding="10px" cellspacing="10px" border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff" bordercolor=#333366><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#6600ff border=0 align=center cellspacing=10px>BATTLE CONSTANTS</td></tr><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#646263 border=0 align=justify cellspacing=10px>

Nara

Character Class
[Veteran] He Xiangu
HP: [50+lvl]*Stamina
CP: [40+lvl]*Chakra Control
+2 Gen Save
+10% Shadow damage
+Spell accuracy
=Evasion, Gen DC, Gen Save
-Melee Accuracy

</td></tr></table><table width="750px" cellpadding="10px" cellspacing="10px" border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff"><tr><td width="750px" colspan=2 bgcolor=#6600ff border=0 align=center>SPECS</td></tr><tr><td width="375px" bgcolor=#646263 border=0 align=justify cellspacing=10px>EQUIPMENT

Kusari-Gama with Bond, Penetration, Serpent's Soul

</td><td width="375px" bgcolor=#646263 border=0 align=justify cellspacing=10px>STATISTICS

Agility: 444
Stamina: 400
Ninjutsu: 452
Taijutsu: 300
Genjutsu: 400
Chakra Control: 525% CAP
CL: 17
PL: 2521

Veteran
HP: (50+lvl) x Stamina
CP: (40+lvl) x Chakra Control

</td></tr><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#646263 border=0 align=justify cellspacing=10px colspan=2>NARA

****

</td></tr><tr><td width="750px" bgcolor=#646263 border=0 align=justify cellspacing=10px colspan=2>ABILITIES

1. Teamwork
2. Insight
3. Jutsu Mastery
4. Ensnaring Viper
5. Red Whirlwind
6. Hyperactive
7. Martial Artist
8. Sorcerer
9. Quickdraw

</td></tr></table><table width="750px" cellpadding="10px" cellspacing="10px" border="0px" bordercolor="#6600ff"><tr><td width="750px" align=center bgcolor=#6600ff border=0 cellspacing=10px colspan=3>JUTSU</td></tr><tr><td width="250px" bgcolor=#646263 border=0 align=justify cellspacing=10px>Ninjutsu

Pressure Burst

Gravel Shift

Storm Bolt
Thunderfist
Thunderclap
Electroshock
Electrocution
Zeus Flash
Lightning Torrent
Lightningstruck
Volt Charge

Rinse Off
Aqua Fang RANK 3
Water Whip RANK 3
Water Gun RANK 3
Pressurized Mist RANK 3

Heat Wave
Scalding Ash Cloud
Searing Eruption
Dragon Fire
Combustive Seal RANK 3
Immolation RANK 3
Fireball RANK 3
Thermal Maw RANK 3
Infernal Ember RANK 3

Critical Exposure RANK 3
Mask Summon RANK 3
Barrier RANK 3
Chakra Sense RANK 3
Active Camo RANK 3
Mental Infiltration RANK 3
Snapshot RANK 3

Spirit Lantern RANK 3
Cancel RANK 3
Crystal Eye RANK 3
Body Switch RANK 3
Transformation RANK 3

Dark Displacement RANK 2
Specter Shade RANK 3
Midnight Strike
Black Eruption

</td><td width="250px" bgcolor=#646263 border=0 align=justify cellspacing=10px>Taijutsu

Twilight Lotus
Precise Interruption RANK 3
Bondage RANK 3
Ensnare RANK 3
Shredding Whirlwind RANK 3
Whiplash RANK 3

Shadow Dance RANK 3
Take Aim

</td></tr></table>

Santaru Rin · Oct 25, 2012

Gettin a jump on dis.

Randomly, I still have:

Santaru Rin had been a faithful woman. She had never once failed to observe the high holidays, and Raijin had had a special place in her personal shrine. Her offerings were never scant, which would show ingratitude, or over lavish, which would show arrogance. She had learned her faith as a child and grown up leaving flowers and smooth pebbles and rice cakes at the home of every little god she passed day to day. She had knelt, stood, bowed, knelt, stood, bowed... Hundreds of times in the meditative calisthenics of Kumogakure's traditional forms of worship, intoxicated by the scent of incense meant to lift away impurity and repulse evil spirits. Her heart had never been but utterly sincere in her devotion to her lord, even when the flowers she left were in turn replaced by blood she shed.

Upon learning that her family was a hidden branch of Santaru, upon confirming that link with the sacred blood, touching the scrolls herself for the very first time, learning the tongue that was her birthright upon the very documents proving her lineage, her love and fear of her god grew only stronger. Her god gave and he took away, and to fear him and love him was his due. Some said Raiden was a mortal man born, and others named Raijin a demon--a maggot fallen from the corpse of the first woman. Her lord was mighty: for he had overcome a dragon, and saved a fledgling tribe that would become Kaminari no Kuni's rulers. Her lord was wise: for though he fell in battle and returned as a god, he ensured the ascendancy of his blood through the heavenly fire, knowing that none would dare question a Santaru wielding his flashing blade.

Santaru Rin knelt before the altar of her ancestors, two old blades bound at her hip, and one steel sword unsheathed in her hands. She came barefoot, with her hair down, and ash on her face, for she had failed her lord, and grace had been withdrawn from her. There was shame in her heart, and the breath of Enma-O whispered judgment in her ear. Men before Raiden had ascended to godhead, and men after had achieved apotheosis, so they said: Aion among them, and Shinbatsu, and some whispered Akira. However, Rin had donned no such pretense, and followed no man--unless duty be called a man, and had she not at last had her bond with him annulled?

Blood welled on her palms as the one-edged sword bit into uncaring flesh. She lifted the sword, head bowed. Incense smoke wreathed her. She had abdicated her duty to the Santaru clan, surrendered the heart of the Sileo Tempestas, and given over the protection of Kaminari no Kuni and Kumogakure no Sato to others. Any failings it may be said that her successors had were, in fact, her failings--for had she not failed to provide a suitable example? Had she not failed in teaching a better way? Rin was no better than her own predecessor: they had forsworn the village for selfish comforts. Perhaps she could argue thus--Shinbatsu, the Raikage, had absolved her of her duties with his blessing--and if he were a god, was that not sufficient? --as her lord-on-earth, was that not enough? She had not left under false pretenses. Staying had meant civil war, which she wanted above all else to avoid.

But that was simply one line of reasoning.

In her heart, she loathed the monster she had become long before she was burdened with the duties of Grand Commander. A murderer, a liar, a scoundrel: these things she had become in order to protect her people and fulfill her obligations. Her family had not wished her to become a kunoichi, but, prideful, Rin had followed the Lightning Path--the steep and narrow ascent to power, upon which any single misstep meant a meteoric fall. One by one, those she had known fell aside: they died, they betrayed, they simply... Left. And in the end, she too had left, forever--wasn't that the plan? To loathe what she was was to loathe the ANBU: as their commander, were they not a reflection of her? To loathe the ANBU: was this not to loathe Kumogakure, to loathe her nation, and to loathe her god?

Wasn’t that hatred the very definition of apostasy for a Santaru? To hate the one from whose blood sprang forth her power?

Santaru Rin settled the blade on the narrow altar; it hung over the edges, hilt to side dexter, point to side sinister. Were the ANBU not the left hand of the Raikage? Was the Raikage not the left hand of the Daimyo?

She had not summoned lightning since she had left Kumogakure years ago. She didn’t dare to try. Inviting the kiss of lightning invited annihilation: an agony and an ecstasy that she yearned for, but to embrace would only lead to the ultimate betrayal. Her life was given over to another, and not for her to choose to throw away. Hayata Shin had reminded her of that.

The candles in the altar room flickered. How she hated him! Her fury was thunderous; the cacophony in her heart enough to rival any storm; her sorrow so cavernous that ten years of rain would not fill it.

Now she was a Sennin once again. She had always been faithful; she had grown in the faith as a child, and her faith was that of a child.

The faith of a child could never sustain a woman grown. Her blood stained the altar: this was not her first such communion with the god. The stains were brown to black, but she did not see them and did not feel the wounds. Chakra pulsed from her in waves. One thing in which none could find fault was her control over chakra: she had had swift hands and a precise command over her own power. But what did that mean now, to one who could no longer call lightning without becoming once more forsworn? She was a woman twice fallen: from her duty to her village, and from her duty to her god.

No, she was thrice fallen: her duty to herself. For she had turned away from pleasure, and she had turned away from companionship, and she had turned away from love; she had sought power in herself, always overcoming, always struggling, always, always -- first and foremost with herself.

Being, non-being, becoming. She had rejected monism. She had rejected dualism. She had embraced the adversary: always in battle against herself, always seeking to transcend herself, seeking the apotheosis which had come seemingly easily to others. Why not her? Why not her? The mats beneath her were torment to her knees. Her back throbbed. Her heart burned. Her chest labored under the yoke. She had long ago destroyed her sword hand, biting off the first part of her own pinky. She had lost intestine to the rages of nature. She was a map of twisted territory, scarred over vast tracts of her body. Senbon that could not be removed were lodged in flesh and bone, hidden snares. Poisons lingered yet in her organs. She had been destroying her body for years, and that was the truth. The trauma to her mind made these seem as scrapes. The damage to her soul yet worse: darkness. Delirium. Despair. These things rose as the tide, pulled by the moon; she could no more resist the pain than the sun could deny its nightly death.

Raiden, a mortal man, had battled the dragon across the earth and in their wake the earth was broken and torn, its bones pulled through the sundered flesh, despoiling arable land in the wake of war. Their blood had drenched the soil, feeding a thousand years of nightmare harvests. When they died, interlocked in obscene embrace, their bodies became the rock upon which man built his empire. The mortal had overcome the immortal, and in so doing became that which he feared and despised.

Raijin, a demon, had ravaged the earth, sending thousands to their deaths, luring thousands to Hell. But he met the dragon, and their battle shook the very bones of the earth; their battle woke the sleeping gods; their battle cracked the gates to Hell and freed the screaming spirits of the damned into the world. And with his blade and his fearsome power, Raijin overcame his foe. He banished the dragon into the mists of death and walked the earth, sending wayward souls back to their dooms.

Her arms trembled, hands lifted up in supplication over her bowed head, her hair tangled and shorn, her ash-streaked face pale. The gift she had been given wasted, running freely to the floor. Her own darkness: that self-hatred. The inability to surrender. To ever accept. Vengeance had driven her on for so long, and when vengeance failed, she had had to escape. She had always been betraying herself, always looking for an answer beyond herself. For someone to punish, someone to blame, for an axe to grind.

Her pulse quickened; the candles dimmed and died with little ceremony. Her vigil here had been for hours upon hours. Her perceptions were sharpened by hunger and thirst, for she yet fasted to throw off her gross mortal impurity. One by one, she forced open her chakra. The root: Muladhara; the base of the spine. Her body screamed alarm, vibrated with the urge to flee. The sacral: Svadisthana; the sacrum. Apathy deadened her hopes; isolated from others, she withered. The solar plexus: Manipura; the diaphragm. Fear swept through her, dragging behind it crippling anxiety such that she could not reach out. The heart: Anahata. The self precluded compassion. Obsession and hatred thrust her onward. The throat: Vishudda. Her thoughts struggled beneath the torrent of emotion. All she could think of was escape, and yet--she pushed on. The brow: Ajna. The central channel had been completed. Her eyes flickered with that ancient light. More brilliant than the sun, like a vision of the divine.

"Being.

"Non-being." She sought the last vortex, Sahasrara, the crown--

"Becoming." The power left her, and she slumped forward, head resting on the cold stone.

When a Santaru could no longer become the storm, could no longer serve as the conduit between heaven and earth, what could she become? No longer Santaru: she laid no claim upon the clan. She called no allies, if any remained, from their numbers. She had left them, and they could not claim her now. She was nothing. She sobbed--a single, low sound, broken. From outside, the hiss of rain arose, spattering against stone, running in rivulets from the roof, trickling down from the fresh green leaves on the trees.

"So you have truly withdrawn your grace from me, lord of thunder," she whispered, arms draped across sword, over stone; this was the supplication of the soul-weary, the one exhausted by the sheer weight of existence. Outside, his voice rumbled; it was no answer. She could not read the sky as she once had done. The shrine had grown dark. How long had she been here? No one attended her now. Her devotions had been fierce and left her raw, weak, and trembling before her god's closed heart. "So you have left me..." He spoke again, insistent, but it was meaningless. She closed her eyes. "And I, to exact your will, but deaf to it. Is this funny? Do you laugh?"

Nothing answered. She replied, a peal of laughter matching the blackest night. The moon hid itself behind its shroud and she laughed, helpless, falling back into the floor. The sword clattered from the altar. Scrolls fell to the floor. Sand and incense spilled over the woven mats. Contorted there, she surrendered to the absurdity--

"Nothing is--

"Nothing is not--

"NOTHING BECOMES!" Her voice shook the shrine, taking on its own power from void. The space around the divine, that space filled with nothing, that non-ens: it shone. And that void was infinite. Within it, realities budded, blossomed, and died without end. And that void--that was within her.

It was, she realized, within them all. If the laughter of a fool like herself could trouble the home of a god, then what else could she do? Within her swam the potential of ... endless realities. "Nothing becomes," she whispered, eyes still closed. A darkness beyond night cloaked her. If she wanted, she could, she knew, steal the divine spark from all of Raiden's scions tonight and emerge as a Santaru reborn, leading the clan to a glorious future of unending blood.

But Hayata Shin had reminded her of her duty; her husband had need of her; and what was she if not mindful of her place in the scheme of things? She rose, leaving chaos behind her. "If this, then, is your answer O lord, then surely it is forgiveness," she said, casting aside at last the ancestral weapons belted to her hip. "Then I will be your left hand, that I may be one day known as the right."

<b>Name:</b> Satou Rin

<b>Sex: Female

<b>Age: 9

<b>Alignment: Lawful good.

<b>Job:</b> Dishwasher/Academy student.

<b>Height/Weight:</b> 4'6", slightly over 34kgs (75lbs).

<b>Eyes:</b> Rin has dark bluish-gray eyes, big, round, and curious, with heavy lashes.

<b>Hair:</b> Her hair is a dull dust-blonde, kept very short--bangs in the front not past her cheekbones, in the back it only reaches the top of her neck; it's parted in the center.

<b>General Appearance:</b> Rin's an average size for a 9 year old girl, still a little round in the face and limbs with baby fat, though strong underneath it. She has a little tan from playing outside and practicing with her father--that combined with her somewhat flat hair color and gray eyes makes her look a little, hmm, beige all over, making a cute girl ultimately rather forgettable. She dresses in dark, dull colors and always darkens any shiny things on her clothes because, according to her father, stealth is the way of the ninja, and stealthy ninjas do not wear sundresses or pink.

<b>Personality:</b> Rin is shy around people she doesn't know, but warms up quickly, especially because her curiosity compels her to ask questions. She's devoted to her studies--it's her goal to become a more successful ninja than her father and not be forced to work in the village as yet another Satou ninja baker. She's a quick learner and likes to share her knowledge with other. Rin is not a very secretive girl and is usually open with everyone, sometimes to the point of being embarassing or even a little cruel. She respects authority and is very loyal; she doesn't tend to get angry often, but she does like to get even with minor pranks once in a while (or tattling, whatever's better). However, she's not the type to hold a grudge (but she will remember you, oh yes). One day she might be a leader.

<b>Bio:</b> Rin's family runs a well-established old bakery in Kumogakure. Her father, Satou Ken'ichi, is a High Genin who didn't successfully complete his Chuunin exam; instead, he became a baker after marrying her mother, Yamada Sachiko, the only child of an old clan that had not had a ninja among its members in many generations. Rin has an older brother, Ryota, age 13; the two usually get along, helping run the family bakery. They live with Yamada Sasayaki, Rin's maternal grandmother, and Satou Akemi, her paternal grandmother, in a generously-sized apartment over the bakery.

Rin has had a peaceful childhood (or as much as it gets in a village full of ninja), and is a cheerful girl, if a little frighteningly dedicated to learning perfect cutting technique in the kitchen. Of course, Ryota, being eldest, has always been the one who would inherit the majority share of the bakery, which Rin believes to mean that he'll get the whole store. While she loves her older brother, she doesn't want to work for him her whole life--there are other things in the world to do or see and be aside from the life of a baker's daughter. There's a better alternative--Rin lives in a hidden village of ninja; she even sells them pastries, and her dad is a ninja, too! (Even if he's not a very good one.) So Rin begged her parents and grandmothers to allow her to go to the ninja academy, and reluctantly (at least on her parents' part), they agreed--with one condition: if she doesn't pass her chuunin exams, she takes a very safe job close to the house. Sasayaki (Rin's maternal grandmother), however, was oddly very supportive of Rin's ambition.

Rin grimaced as she struggled with the weights. She wasn't as dextrous as she used to be, and she rarely channeled chakra to the limits she had butted up against as a sennin. Her usage these days was patterned after the practices of her father: utility and worship. She almost never even increased her own strength or stamina, relying purely on her innate physical strength--the strength she barely maintained even now. The weights were too heavy to be safe, but Rin didn't let that stop her. If she strained something, she could take care of it with Mystic Hand. Her skill with that technique had waned, but it was enough to soothe swelling.

Some sea change had occurred to the structure of chakra, or perhaps it was just her, but Rin found that she no longer had the knack for old tricks she had relied on back in the day. At least fire still came naturally; the spark was useful in the kitchen.

The field behind her home was wide but secluded by a copse on one side and cliffs on the other; no one would see her hefting medicine balls, hacking at wood, and swinging weighted chains as though she were still an academy student. Just an old, rotten woman academy student... She grimaced at the appellation and her next swing was more violent and less controlled. Chain wrapped itself around her calf and pulled taut. Hissing at the pain, she hobbled to a stump and sat to unwrap herself. Too bad trying that on unruly patrons would probably lead to a division of bakufuu troops "just stopping by."

That was going to leave a dent. She probed the damage to the muscle. <i>What a joke... A broken-down kunoichi like me, day-dreaming about chaining up drunks.</i> Practicing some binding in the bedroom could be fun, though, she mused. Now that the children were gone, there wasn't much sense in not getting their freak on. That was her theory, anyway. Masao could be a little delicate. She was sure he had never really forgiven her for dropping a toilet tank on him.

That was fine, though, she thought as she stood. She had never really forgiven him for that dutch oven tactic. Rin whipped the weighted chain out at a post and jerked back, nearly uprooting it. "Shit," she chastised herself. Digging posts was a pain in the ass and she didn't want to have to fix it just because she'd gotten a little excited. "Time to shut it down for the day, then," she muttered to herself. Carelessness wasn't a trait to be practiced or encouraged. She put away her toys and went to soak in their private bath, idly imagining the types of tactics and tricks she could get up to using chain to entangle fictional opponents.

WC: 470-ish.

Santaru Rin · Mar 13, 2013

OCR Approval Papertrail said:
OCR finalized 2/16.

Kogami Ayumu · Sep 13, 2013

Retired Jun 19 2013

Santaru Rin - ANBU Regent Commander

Well-Known Ninja

Santaru Rin

Well-Known Ninja

Santaru Rin

Well-Known Ninja

Santaru Rin

Well-Known Ninja

Santaru Rin

Well-Known Ninja

Santaru Rin

Well-Known Ninja

Kogami Ayumu

Faithful Ninja