Amori Tsubasa: Yamabushi no Tengu
BASICS
Name: Amori Tsubasa is what he calls himself, though his name at birth was simply Sojobo.
Age: Hands that would seem too large for such small devices flick a lighter open, holding the resultant flame to the bowl of a long pipe. He puffs a couple times, and stows the lighter back in some unseen pocket. "Olderân you, kid." Appears 30, with one of those faces thatâs probably looked that way since he was about nineteen and probably will until heâs well into his fifties. Well, longer, actually, considering the whole âyoukaiâ thing. His real age isnât something anyoneâs asked after, and heâs not the kind to volunteer. Actually pretty young by demon standards, though.
Race: "One wing-ed freak o' nature, at your service." There is no jocularity when he says this, only something veiled in the cynical words, almost recognizable as guardedness. Tengu, and outwardly blasé about the whole thing. The black wings indicate that he was born a youkai, rather than becoming one.
Faction: "The grand olâ union of the three most important people I know: me, myself, and I." He seems to know everyone, and nobodyâs really sure who he actually runs with. The middleâs a dangerous place to be, but commitment isnât really his thing anymore.
Role: "Yâknow those fancy-ass weapons that most of these idiots carry around? I actually know how to work âem. Pretty good talker, too, if I say so mâself." He crosses his arms over his chest, as if to emphasize the point with a show of intimidation. Donât let him fool you, heâs not nearly as much of a buffoon as you think he is. Having spent the majority of his life in a monastery that practices martial arts and sword skills, heâs quite suited to turning reckless street brawlers into more efficient fighters. Heâs also likely to come off as important only to himself- exactly the kind of person people let down their guard around. As of right now, he works freelance, as a bodyguard, bouncer, or even occasionally slayer/exorcist/miscellaneous religious practitioner, whatever pays the bills.
APPEARANCE
He tosses those troublesome tendrils of hair back from his face with an impatient snort, putting on his best condescendingly-incredulous face, which kills the amusingly horselike manner of the gesture. "What dâyou care? I mean, I know Iâm nice to look at, but reallyâŠ" Heâs become quite skilled at hiding his more avian traits, but there are still a few subtle nods to his heritage here and there. His hair is a mass of strangely greenish-black glossy strands, but thereâs an oddly-feathery texture to it. "What? Not like Iâm gonna let you close enough to touch my hair." Itâs easily mid-back in length and shaggy beyond all reason. Probably because he always had to keep it bald when he was a kid, you know? His eyes narrow not-so-subtly, and something in his posture shifts. "Watch it." Touchy, touchy.
His face is rough angles and a square jaw, with a nose that, while large and somewhat hooked, suits the rest quite well. I ainât a girly-man, if thatâs what yer askinâ. Oh, for- heâs probably best described as rugged-ly handsome.. Fine. His egoâs not entirely misplaced here, and he is rather pleasant to gawk at if thatâs your thing. But please, donât ever tell him so. Having spent much of his life outdoors, heâs quite tan, though for whatever reason his face (cheekbones particularly) often takes on the slightly-reddish hue of someone whoâs had just a bit too much to drink. His eyes are an eerie red, though for the purposes of disguise he does sometimes turn them black. Theyâre the first thing to go if his camouflage slips, though.
In either form, Tsubasa is rather massive, at least for a Japanese man, standing at around six very well-built feet tall and replete with an impressive, though not cumbersome, musculature. Most of the time, heâs scowling, but will crack a wicked smile at the smallest of provocations. Just because Iâm a man of faith doesnât mean I donâ appreciate a good joke, lady.
Should he choose to transform, which he doesnât seem to do often, he can affect the change either partially or fully. The most common iterations are wings only, which erupt from his back rather than his arms, and the full shebang, in which plumage sprouts pretty much everywhere, his eyes go scarlet from sclera to pupil, and his feet and hands grow curved talons. Even in this state, though, he still has thumbs and fingers, so as to successfully grip things. He does grow a beak, which is pretty sharp in its own right, and his head resembles a crowâs, only on a humanoid torso.
Complexion: Tanned, with a slight ruddiness to his cheeks on occasion.
Body Type: Very well-muscled. He is what some people would refer to as "built like a brick shit-house." It contrasts kind of awkwardly with the holy-man vibe he gives off before he opens his mouth. Broad-chested, broad-shouldered, and long in the limbs.
Height and Weight: 6â0, approximately 185 lbs? I suck at guessing weights.
Distinguishing marks: Thereâs a large raven tattooed across his back. It appears to have its wings spread and carries a dragonlike creature in its talons. The dragon is breathing flames, setting the bird on fire from below. "Donâ ask." Whyâd you have it done in the first place, then? "I was drunk." The words are clipped, clearly defensive, though perhaps not entirely untrue. Right⊠For some reason he also has unnaturally-pointed canines in his humanoid form, which occasionally causes people to mistake him for something else.
Apparent Temperament: Well, considering he slouches like someone with a permanent spinal curvature, the intimidation factor is lessened, but the unfriendly frown he wears isnât exactly helpful. Of course, some people are just crazy and find him approachable anyway. Maybe itâs because the folks he hangs around usually presume theyâre tougher than a guy dressed like a monk, who knows? He's the sort of person you'd expect to see in a bar, smelling like a distillery, making perverse passes at women, gambling away all his money, and generally being an ass.
Hair and eyes: The hair is pretty much his most recognizable feature. Here, a near-predatory grin splits his face in half, though it's not quite right for some reason you can't quite place. "Ladies all wanna touch it, too." Unless he forgets to keep them that way, his eyes are an unremarkable black, but otherwise, they do tend to become a very bright red.
Facial features: His nose would stand out horribly on any other face, probably, but it fits his well enough.
Wardrobe: He seems to be something of an eccentric dresser, always in some kind of traditional clothing. Usually, itâs of the sort worn by yamabushi, but he has less-religious haori, kimono, and hakama as well. Whatever heâs dressed like, you can bet it stands out. His footwear rarely changes; a kind of geta with only one âtooth,â they appear extraordinarily difficult to balance on, but offer an extra six inches of height, as though he needed it. If you ever have to do his laundry Ya wonât, thank you very much, youâd notice that all of the hems and such actually contain heavy metal plates, intended to weigh him down. Itâs an endurance thing, okay? Gotta take yer traininâ seriously. Also sometimes seen to wear a cape of all things, which is probably around 50lbs of extra baggage. He's really serious about the training thing, apparently.
PERSONALITY
Tsubasa is a study in contradiction. On the one hand, he generally tries to project a tough, unbothered, devil-may-care exterior, complete with the gruff mannerisms and all that good stuff. Underneath this rather poor showing of his acting ability, though, heâs quite the softie. Oi, you, shut up! He has a fondness for animals, children, and gardening, and his ramshackle apartment is filled to the brim with bonsai trees, kites, and handmade pottery. Though he talks a big game, he carries only blunt weapons and rarely ever gets into serious confrontations with anyone.
Heâs easily fooled, and most people with even a bit of guile can pull the wool over his eyes without any particular difficulty. He was raised by people who didnât lie (at least not in ways he discovered), and so the idea of deception is still entirely foreign to him. Heâs picked up an understanding of sarcasm, but is surprisingly earnest when he forgets heâs acting. Though he plays the part of a drinking, gambling, womanizing fool, he actually gets tongue-tied around people who show him genuine kindness (especially women), and doesnât really know how to handle things like physical contact or compliments. The only things heâs able to talk about with real fluidity are certain religious precepts Enlightenment ainât somethinâ you find sitting around on a mountaintop all day and waitinâ. Itâs everywhere but there. Itâs at the tip of your sword against a manâs neck, in the sound of the rain on a roof, in the smell of sakura blossoms in the spring, ya know? and also martial arts. Heâs surprisingly thoughtful, he is.
Heâs also extremely vulnerable. Tengu are fiercely protective of those things they choose to guard, but Tsubasa is adrift in the breeze with nothing to hold onto anymore, and this has left him groundless, without much purpose. Should anyone offer him a hint of that, itâs entirely possible they could manipulate him to ill ends without much trouble. There are certain things he will categorically refuse to do, but he does not understand politics or mind-games, and is thus very much in danger of falling victim to them. His sense of humor is kind of strange, as part of it seems to resemble a twelve-year-oldâs, but the other part is quite witty and intellectual.
Speech: You gotta problem with how I talk? He puts on a slangy Kansai-ben accent, which sounds vaguely hickish or uneducated to most Japanese speakers (and will likely peg him as the village idiot pretty quickly), but isnât quite as uncommon in Kyoto. Common tics include the substitution of âhanâ for âsanâ and so forth. Presumably, he doesnât actually talk this way, given his upbringing. Not that again. He also swears pretty often, though if you pay attention, youâll notice he never actually calls anyone anything nasty, and his epithets are directed at circumstances or general things rather than individuals. His voice has a surprisingly smooth, lyrical quality for someone of his construction, which can actually be quite jarring.
Pet Peeves: You. Truthfully, Tsubasa isnât bothered by much. All that meditation has to be good for something, right? Mostly, he tends to look ill upon people who live their lives with no discipline, which would probably strike most people as hypocritical of him but isnât. Not a huge devotee of the âsadistic murdererâ type, people who mistreat kids, or other levels of inexcusable douchebaggery. Also not a fan of being lied to; it sits poorly with him.
Favorite color: Heâs fond of bright colors, especially in jewel-tones. Hates pastel anything.
EQUIPMENT
Specialty: Heâs uniquely capable of taking things out without killing them.
Fighting Style: Being a (former) Buddhist monk and all means he doesnât want to kill things, but he does know a few amalgamated styles of martial arts and a kendo style called Tenshiken.
Preferred Weaponry: He carries a traditional monkâs shakujo, or ringed staff, and a bokken, which is a specialized type of wooden sword that is shaped more like a katana than the shinai. His has a soft-metal core perfect for stopping other blades, but this also renders it heavy enough that he has to check his swings or risk crushing something vital. Just 'cause I look like an oaf doesn' mean I got no finesse.
Weaknesses: What are you talkinâ about? I ainât got any weaknesses! Yeah, right.
Manipulability: Simply put, you might have a tough time hurting him in a fair fight, but the moment you make it unfair, youâve probably won hands down. He wonât risk innocents, and he wonât know youâre lying to him unless itâs really obvious. Susceptible to the most basic of damsel-in-distress routines or similar themes.
Remnants: He might not be a practicing monk anymore, but that doesnât mean heâs thrown his beliefs out the window. He is absolutely, categorically opposed to killing anyone, (or anything, really; dude doesnât eat meat), wonât do violence unless he sees it as completely necessary, and refuses to deceive or mislead intentionally. These arenât rules heâll bend as soon as itâs convenient; theyâre strict tenets of his entire lifestyle.
Inventory:
Shakujo staff
Bokken
Hauchiwa- a fan made of feathers, of assistance in wind conjuration.
Prayer beads
The key to his apartment
Some money, but honestly not a lot.
Minor Ability:
Theoretically, Tengu are devourerers of all manner of other youkai, capable of whipping up fierce winds and possessing people to cause problems for others. In reality, Tsubasa finds eating other demons distasteful as a notion and untried as a practice, and is young enough that his air manipulation skills are pretty weak. Basically, he can do small things like shift breezes or conjure very small gusts. He canât possess anyone either, but has a weird peripheral sort of empathy, enhanced by his understanding of the oneness of all things. If I understand me a little bit, and you and me are the same in the end, then I understand you some too, yeah? He can pick up on strong emotions like anger, despair or confusion, even if people arenât expressing them. He wonât know about your minor problems or even whatâs causing the big ones, but heâll have a general sense that things are good or bad in your world.
Additional Guise: Well, unless âitinerant monkâ or âloudmouthed moronâ are guises, no.
LIFE
Hobbies: Gardening, especially bonsai, and pottery are his main hobbies, though he also enjoys things like listening to stories, music, and flying recreationally (both kites- oh, irony- and himself).
Likes:
- Peace and Quiet- Shame itâs so hard to find in the city. Mind you, itâs not total isolation he wants, but a little space to hear himself think would be nice. No shit.
- Food- A man his size eats quite a bit, though he refuses anything with meat content. He appreciates home-cooked meals the best, and though heâs rather good at cooking himself, heâd rather eat anyone elseâs food but his own. Says a lot about a person. Right; it's definitely not that you want a free meal.
- Humans- While he pretends to hate them just as much as he pretends to hate everyone else, the fact of the matter is that they fascinate him.
- Gardening- Probably a strange hobby for a guy like him, but, well, youâll probably never know anyway, right?
- Kids- And for some reason, kids like him too. Adults might get intimidated, but something about him tends to set children at ease.
- Smoking- Pipes only, mind you. It's a recent habit that he picked up for the sake of appearances.
Dislikes:
- Holier-than-thou attitudes- These drive him up a wall. There arenât a lot of ways to actually make Tsubasa angry, but start talking down to him from the so-called moral high ground, and youâll see his nasty face pretty quick. Had enough o' that shit for lifetimes.
- Egocentricity- Funny, since he initially appears to have this problem himself.
- Threats- Specifically to persons or places heâs told himself heâll protect. His word is his bond, and once heâs sworn to look after you, those whoâd challenge your right to walk the earth are put in their place without hesitation.
- Lies- If thereâs one thing about Tsubasa that always applies, itâs that he doesnât lie. He wonât tell them, and heâs absolutely horrendous at detecting them.
Fears: Well, being a lifelong vegetarian, his system reacts violently to the consumption of meat, which basically amounts to an allergy at this point. As for fears, well⊠I ainât afraida nothinâ. Mostly, heâs afraid heâll never find a purpose. Also doesnât like confined spaces, or places where he canât see the sky.
Agenda: Tsubasa needs something to do with himself. Heâs recently left behind his entire life, and frankly, heâs quite the fish out of water in the city. For now, his motivation is the desire to find a motivation, paradoxical as that sounds. Guardianship is in his nature, but he has nothing to guard at present, which has left him feeling uncomfortably aimless.
Where they hail from: Nowhere important. Mount Kurama, a small monastery.
Relations: Monks don' do that whole 'worldly attachment business. Bad for your karma. Not that he believes that anymore. He was raised by the abbot on Mount Kurama, in a mountainside monastery with maybe twenty other monks at any given time. No nuns, either, which means that he has a tough time relating to women sometimes. Mostly, they confuse the hell out of him. Anyway, the point of the story is that emotional attachments were generally discouraged, though he couldn't help but view the abbot as a father-figure of sorts, despite the fact that the man was human.
Since then, his permanent relationships have been few and far-between. He lives a primarily solitary life, though he does it in a large city.
Notable Experiences: I ain't done nothin' you'd be interested in, kid. Go bother someone else, will ya? Actually, his most notable experience thus far in his life was leaving the monastery. He'd been raised in it all his life, and they didn't even bother to tell him he was a Tengu until he was old enough that he transformed the first time. The abbot was a very distant relative of the Queller, and was able to exercise enough influence over a single demon child that Sojobo was unaware of his lineage until he was about twelve. You can probably imagine the identity crisis that resulted.
Once he figured it out, though, he took to affecting the transformation himself, so as to take the pressure off the abbot. At this time, his religious training began in earnest, and he was exposed to the teachings of esoteric Buddhism. Included in his study of the sutras and exorcism were several styles of martial arts, including Tenshiken kendo forms.
Would you quit with this crap and get to the present? Only an idiot spends this long on the past.
For reasons he refuses to divulge, Sojobo became convinced that the true road to enlightenment lay not in escape from the world, but immersion in it, with attention to certain details that the average fool might not pick up on, so he left the monastery and undertook something of a pilgrimage. He's shown no desire to return since, and has generally been one of those cranky ramblers you don't want to sit next to at the bar. At some point, he decided that it was probably a bad idea to attend this party as himself, so he chose a different name and a separate persona to go with it, in an attempt to conceal his glaring vulnerabilities.
Credit will go to the artists when/if I can find them again. None of these images are mine.
