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The Winter Petal of Benevolent Worship
Tō ∞ 963 ∞ Ōtengu
Hunter, Entertainer
Hair: Black ∞ Eyes: Black ∞ Complexion: Fair
Height: 165cm ∞ 5’4
Weight: 50kg ∞ 110lbs
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Dancing ∞ Tōka’s has an amazing talent for movement, with the seeming inability to slip or twitch or shudder when she doesn’t want to. As such, dancing was quite easy to learn and something she took endless joy in participating in. Throughout her travels she has strived to learn how different people move so that she can do the same, and she has traveled for a very long time and over a vast stretch of land. Sometimes she dances to put on a show and entertain others, sharing her joy with them, while other times she will dance with no one around for any number of reasons: boredom, exercise, or sharing some joy with herself.
Education ∞ Whether it be languages, philosophy, calligraphy, art, music, ceremonies, mathematics, religion, or what have you, Tōka has probably learned something about it. Not only was she raised with a good education at home, but her curiosity has caused her to try and learn something as she moves from place to place and that has led to a wide breathe of knowledge. Due to her travels, she has also managed to acquire an assortment of less academic knowledge. Who’s ruling this or that province, what the current political situation’s like overall, and even some knowledge with the seedier side of Japan.
Martial Arts ∞ It’s expected of someone sent to handle exiled criminals and the sorts of rabble who would escape into the human world to be capable of handling themselves in a fight. Tōka isn’t going to overpower a stronger opponent through her style or talent for fighting, but she’s certainly capable of dealing with a good number of people who aren’t stronger than her.
Land of Purity ∞ A result of her extensive time spent with Buddhists and studying their sutras and mantras, Tōka may call a sort of atmosphere into her surrounding area. It requires a clear and peaceable head on her part, and bestows such upon those in the area; clearing away confusion, frustration, anxiety, fear, and anger and replacing it with a soothed mind more capable of learning and insight than it was before. At least, it does so only so long as the people involved are not really intent on holding onto their ignorance and anger.
Transformation ∞ When they learn that she is a Tengu, everyone always expects Tōka’s transformation to amount to a pair of wings, or that she’ll sprout feathers and a beak and that’ll be it. If they ever see it, they quickly realize how wrong they are. The Great Tengu of the Sutoku Clan do not have the slim build of a bird, and seem much more like a bear if you replaced its fur with black feathers and its jaw with a beak. Said bear is also, frighteningly enough, the size of a decent sized home with an oversized wingspan to match. If that isn’t enough for the unfortunate witness of such a transformation, they then get to witness such a large creature take to the air and moves faster than it probably should be able to. Though, when flight would prove itself to be useful and she doesn’t want to terrorize the people around her, Tōka will usually settle for just sprouting a pair of black wings.
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The desire to not kill people who haven’t really done anything wrong isn’t a surprising one, though, it’s simply that Tōka would prefer it if everything could be done without the killing. She’s seen what death on a wide scale can do, not in regards to lost life and land, but to what’s left once the all the death has, for a moment, stopped and given people a moment to look around. It’s a kind of smothered, twitchy fear you can see in people: the constant worry of when it will all start up again and that someone else will be lost. At least, that is what one finds in most people; the worst ones have a soulless acceptance of what they consider the inevitable. Tōka witnessed both when she was fairly young, and she’s not very interested in seeing it any more. Even when it comes to the lost causes that unequivocally need to be put down, there is a small sting to the act, though it is usually balanced by a sense of moral rightness and duty.
And it is in this duty bestowed upon her that Tōka finds immense pride. She suffers no delusions about the horrific crimes the Sutoku committed long ago and the civil war they fought over petty power struggles, but she finds the result of these atrocities and traumas to be laudable. Despite the millennia of cruel traditions and intense violence ingrained in their clan, they have subdued these demons of theirs and forced them to serve a grand and noble purpose. As such, Tōka will, openly and without shame, address herself as a member of the clan, even amongst people who understand the significance of the name. Though it must be said that her pride is not limited solely to her clan and her mission, but to herself as well, in what she’d prefer to be called confidence. She sees herself without the smallest shred of doubt as talented, learned, and strong, and she will not let anyone pretend otherwise.
One of these talents that she takes so much pride in is entertaining others, and not simply because she’s rather good at many of the typical methods of putting smiles onto people, but because of how much she enjoys it. As a child Tōka would always be sure to show every last one of her attendants whenever she learned a new dance or song, but it was only when she took to traveling the human world that her fire for the art was truly kindled. Lordly courts, welcoming inns, holy temples, humble homes, and even the winter street would serve as a stage for some performance or another, most often some form of dancing.
And with entertainment came conversation. Tōka quite enjoys that as well, even if the people she’s conversing with are likely not as worldly as she is. She enjoys the stories they share and shares stories of her own, masking the less human ones in the guise of fables and ghost stories. She will laugh at even some of the crudest humor, and talk openly about a number of subjects so long as her partners in this maintain a modicum of respect and decency, though sometimes she’ll be the one to overstep the bounds by engaging in a conversation more suitable for a different group of people than the one she’s currently with. She can sometimes play it off in some way, but often the moment is simply spoiled along with Tōka’s mood. Still, she has more success than failure, and has conversed with many throughout the years, even enjoying the majority of them.
Despite this though, and despite the large amount of humans and yōkai that she’s encountered over the centuries, Tōka cannot shake a feeling of loneliness. She rarely stays anywhere for any prolonged period of time and can only ever return once she’s sure that everyone who might recognize her are either dead or too old to really interact with the strange woman who arrived in the village, meaning that any friendly acquaintances she meets on her journey last at most a few months and are then lost forever. Tōka once made an attempt to visit the same place within a few decades. What could be called the good experiences involved having to constantly lie about her name and reassure people that it was a coincidence that she looked like that woman from decades ago. The bad involved people realizing that she wasn’t human and reacting less than well to that fact. But, regardless of any of this, she remembers many of them regardless of their growing number, and such memories both ease and remind her of her burden.
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Tōka was born to this victor only a few years before the end of the war. While she wouldn’t have to experience that bloodshed and savagery, she would come of age at a time of instability and anxiety. Her father had his hands full keeping potential invaders at bay through attempts diplomacy and her mother now spent most of her time ensuring that no member of the clan instigated another conflict, both in and outside their shrunken borders. As such, Tōka had a childhood lacking in parents. Her parents took to their new, less violent, lives with fervor and twisted the arms of anyone who didn’t willingly come along, and that meant less time to spend with their daughter. It’s not an uncommon thing for highborn to be left in the care of attendants and servants, but years seemed to go by without her even seeing a trace of her parents.
It didn’t take Tōka long to understand this as the way things simply were; she barely had any interactions with her parents before to miss now. And with understanding came acceptance, and with acceptance came a life of comfort and security. Her attendants and servants, headed by her wet nurse, cared for her immensely, not only tending to her every need (and many of her wants), but making a sincere effort to keep her happy in this life. She was educated, entertained, and raised by these people for over a decade, ignorant to the world beyond her out of the way estate. When she was finally exposed to it, a creeping darkness seeped into the bright, shining life that she had lived up to that point. It was an odd thing, seeing the aftermath of such a traumatic event but not personally experiencing it. People everywhere were scared and irritable and even through years of effort they had not managed to repair large tracts of land. Witnessing this, all Tōka knew was that it was something so horrible that it could never be allowed to happen again. And, so far, it hasn’t.
Her parents had taken numerous steps to ensuring that this would always be the case: reparations were given to their former enemies who they had harassed for centuries, their traditions were drastically altered, and they became increasingly concerned about the divider between the human and yōkai realms. It was this lattermost part that became the funnel by which old habits would live on; they would turn the human realm into one that is inhospitable to the yōkai and either bring them back to their own realm or put them down. Violence would be their tool of peace and stability, and Tōka, now exposed to the world and the terrors that could befall it, served dutifully in this new way of life.
It wasn’t too difficult to convince the yōkai to not interfere with humans, as they seemed to view such things as one of the worst crimes or the worst punishments, but that still left those who had escaped or been banished to the human world. Tōka would be part of the solution to this problem, as she and several others would be sent to the human world. There they would either retrieve or execute the yōkai found in the human world by whatever means they deemed fit. For her part, save for the instances of dealing with the sort of unrepentant criminal who would use their punishment as little more than a new opportunity to victimize people, Tōka always strove to try and convince those she found to simply return, promising refuge with the Sutoku Clan. Those that accepted such an invitation were simply led back to the other realm and managed by officials on that side of things; those that refused were often more complicated.
If Tōka could not convince someone to return, there needed to be a very convincing reason for her to allow them to remain. Such a thing rarely happened, and then things became simple once again. After spending so much time around humans, many of the exiled yōkai became arrogant and believed themselves to be so powerful. Tōka washed away their arrogance as she forced them to their knees and executed them, though some were admittedly clever and managed to evade her for quite some time. While, in retrospect, she wholly appreciates the opportunity to travel and learn, one particularly stubborn target of hers fled all the way to India in the west–the hunt for him lasted years. Another complicated encounter happened in the mountains of northern Japan, where a large group of rebels were led by an Oni.
Not optimistic enough to simply walk in and attempt to convince her to give up all this power she had obtained and return home, Tōka communicated with her through a series of letters. It seemed hopeful at first, but soon their correspondence turned sour and the Oni simply refused to respond at that point. Acting the part of a traveling entertainer (something she took great joy in doing), she managed to find her way inside and get close enough to her target. Such an overt assassination of someone left a rather poor taste in her mouth, but it was the most reasonable approach to the situation and thus was the one she took. Now that she has left the rebels with a new, human leader (after weeks of minor struggles over the issue), Tōka has turned her sights to that bright light that everyone has avoided up to this point. Everyone was aware of the kitsune, but his seeming lack of malicious action and the abundance of alternative targets have resulted in many leaving him be. That time was over, and it was time to convince him to come home. And, one way or another, when he has let go of the human world, the goal of a world for humanity that is not beset and abused by the monsters will be that much closer.
“A brief overview of the characters actual feelings and what not. Doesn't have to be long.”
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“She is a kitten guarding a wolf, tasked to do so by a tiger. It’s a rather sad sight.”
As with all yōkai, Tōka wants nothing more than to bring Asuka back to her proper home. It doesn’t matter if she was born in the human world to parents who lived here, they were wrong to do so and Tōka is here to rectify the matter. As with children, she is energetic and amusing to watch as she approaches life with the ignorance that youth affords, but her service to old beings with very little need of her actual protection is worrying, no matter if they call themselves brothers or fathers. To further the worry, Tōka cans practically smell the magic cast upon her, locking something away. Perhaps if she had a proper home away from an ever threatened humanity Asuka wouldn’t need to be restrained, and that’s what will be.
“Delusions born from coincidence and convenient interpretation, and used to warp humanity.”
Wandering amongst humanity for ages, twisting their lives along the way and pushing this or that man to his ultimate end: that is the Black Kirin who chooses the True Emperor. While standing next to someone successful every so often might be enough to convince humanity of good omens and good fortune, the dead still lie in the ground and many of their conquests and achievements died with them. While Tōka has little praise for Yoshirō, the least she can say is that he limited himself to a village and holding some influence over the people from that position, whereas the Kirin seeks out those with power to nudge along, taking away their agency in exchange for false promises.
“There is only suffering to be found by those who die so soon.”
dududu
“Who?
The only thing notable about this man is the curse placed upon him. There is undoubtedly sympathy for his suffering at the hands of what filth those of the Yōkai Realm deigned to throw into the human world, but there doesn’t seem to be much Tōka can really do to stop it. She imagines others have tried, and is glad that he’s found a way to manage it, though has no qualms about putting him down if he succumbs; he ceases to truly be a human and simply becomes a wound on the world. One that needs to heal, and needs the yōkai and all their influence gone to do so, and she’s not interested in sending a human back to her world.
“This is embarrassing.”
A man who seems to be both new and is skulking around; not a unique thing to be in a town filled with outcasts, exiles, and the general riffraff that flock to the protection offered by someone other than a lord and with no duty to truly adhere to the laws that govern the lands of men. As such, he was rather forgettable; he looks as if he can handle himself in a fight but again, so do many of the people in Edo, and some of those who don’t just don’t make a show of it.
“You should take it as a compliment really, being a ninja and all.”
dududu