Wise Centipede shugenja
Background
Sakurai Mitsumune was too young to fight in World War II, but he recalls the war well; particularly Japan’ s defeat when the atomic bombs fell. His father died during the war, leaving 13-year old Mitsumune to care for his mother and two younger siblings. When a man came to their house and offered him work, Mitsumune knew he was with the Yakuza but he didn’t much care.
He took the job and joined the local Yakuza gumi. The black market boomed and there was CHAPTER FIVE: HONORED SHEN 93 plenty of money to be made. Not only that, but the Yakuza considered Mitsumune a man, not a boy, which also meant he was a fair target in the eyes of competing gangs. A rival gangster knifed Mitsumune, leaving him to bleed out his life in a filthy tenement.
His mother reported him missing and the police searched, not knowing Mitsumune was already dead. His soul was in the depths of Yomi, wandering the streets of the Wicked City. Driven by the need to return to his family and avenge himself on his killer, Mitsumune found his way out of Hell while fending off the servants of the Yama King Mikaboshi.
He took the Second Breath just as police were ready to give up the search; his first business was to feed on his killer. The chih-mei returned home, and Mitsumune wrestled with his Demon while watching his family’s shadows move through the house from the cover of darkness. He won and convinced his mother and siblings he had been held captive, and that the police could not learn “the truth.
” Mitsumune hid his condition from his family, but he could not hide it from the stranger who met him as he left home one night. She explained Mitsumune had risen from the dead to atone for his past mistakes, and offered to teach him. He accepted and learned to follow the Flame of the Rising Phoenix.
His teacher encouraged Mitsumune to leave the Yakuza, but he had no other means of supporting his family and little education. He continued with the gumi, though he did his best to take his teacher’s lessons to heart. Mitsumune’s Demon made him a force to be reckoned with, and word of this fierce young Yakuza spread.
A kobun named Orano approached Mitsumune and revealed that he too was like Mitsumune and his teacher Michiko. He, however, was not bound to his old human life. In fact, his identity as Orano and a kobun was just a disguise for the powerful Kuei-jin beneath.
He told Mitsumune that his sensei’s teachings were flawed; the path she showed him could only lead to ruin, but neither would Orano interfere nor even tell other vampires about Mitsumune since they would surely destroy him. He told the boy to come see him if he wanted to learn.
Growing increasingly frustrated with his teacher’s demands about leaving the Yakuza and her insistence for duty and obligation, Mitsumune was drawn to this new sensei. He went to him infrequently at first, but then more and more often. From Orano he learned detachment: the need to leave his old life behind, to experience what the world could offer him so he could learn its lessons.
Under Orano’ s guidance, he destroyed Michiko, his old teacher. Then he returned home and broke his remaining ties by killing his family. He set fire to the house and left without turning back. Since then, Mitsumune has been a gangster, a schoolboy, a thief, a prostitute, a small-time Japanese pop star and many other things.
Along the way he studied Kuei-jin occult lore and focused on an understanding of Chi and the power of the Dragon Lines, hoping to discover a means of purging the poison from the Dragon Nests of Nippon. When his mentor Orano broke their ties and moved on, Mitsumune did the same and went to San Francisco to study the Dragon Nests there, where hes has since impressed Lord Hino with his knowlege.
Mitsumune advises Lord Hino on mystical matters while maintaining several guises in the city that he uses to observe and gather information. He is most concerned with the poisoning of the Dragon Nest in Bayview, and hopes to study the problem more closely.
Character Description
Sakurai Mitsumune looks like a tall, thin Japanese teenager, around 15 or 16 years old. He has short black hair, which he wears in any number of styles to suit his current guise. He’s a virtual chameleon, changing mannerisms as easily as he does outfits to look like a hip American high-school student, a visiting Japanese tourist or a go-go boy in the Castro. He sometimes dresses as a woman and can carry it off quite well. With his rituals (like Wear the Lesser Mask, see Dharma Book: Thousand Whispers, p. 56), he can appear as virtually anyone. On the occasions when he’s unmasked, like at Lord Hino’ s court, he favors a plain kimono or jeans and a tight-fitting t-shirt, all in white. Roleplaying Notes: You wear a thousand different masks, but within you are as still and calm as the void. You can be wantonly flirtatious, wryly charming, cuttingly sarcastic, diplomatic… whatever the situation calls for. Your only goal is balance and detachment, which currently manifests in your desire to understand the feng shui of San Francisco and use it to help restore the balance to this embattled city. You admire and respect Lord Hino, but find the Quincunx’s Kuei-jin shortsighted and foolish. The Kin-jin intrigue you, though they too are blind. You find your unpredictability puts most hidebound Kuei-jin off balance, and you like it that way.