Name: Tousaki Ryouma
Age: 20 at ANBU Trials
Birthday: April 7, Sandaime Year 14
Rank outside ANBU: Jounin
Service: ANBU field ops, ANBU Team 6
Ninja ID: 010950
Physical Appearance
Height: 190 cm / 6’3”
Weight: 81.6 kg / 180 lbs
Blood Type: B+
Hair: thick and black, with a tendency toward ruffled spikes. It’s cut short on the nape of his neck, but falls to his brows in front.
Eyes: very dark brown, deep-set and expressive. He has absurdly long eyelashes for a man.
Skin: a little darker than most Konoha natives; he’s got a year-round tan.
Facial Features: blessed with chiseled good looks and a cocky grin, he’s got high cheekbones, a narrow chin, and a straight nose with a very slight dip where it was broken and reset. He goes clean-shaven, though he doesn’t grow much beard anyway and can go several days without noticeable stubble. His fighting grin is feral and frightening.
Other Physical Traits: tall and rangy, Ryouma’s got the build of a taijutsu user and the fast, long-fingered hands of a ninjutsu expert who spends half his life doing seal-work. He’s also got the energy level of a hyperactive five-year-old. If he’s not fidgeting, he’s probably asleep. His left knee aches in bad weather and stiffens up after strenuous activity, and his hands hurt after using the Naizou Tokasu even twice.
Handedness: right-handed.
Voice: baritone verging into bass. Gravels out into a low rumble when he gets intense. His diction improves when he’s teasing or sweet-talking.
Identifying Marks: aside from the brand new ANBU tattoo on his left biceps, Ryouma’s got an intricately detailed dragon tattooed in black, red, blue, and green over his left collarbone and pectoral, along with spiky-swirling black abstract designs up his right forearm and across his shoulderblades. His left nipple is pierced with a silver ring.
He also has the usual multitude of scars, including an angling slice from the top of his right ear (usually obscured by his hair), a shiny burn licking up the back of his right arm, a ridged slice over his left kidney, and a knotted mess low on the back of his shoulder (under the tattoo) where one of his chuunin teammates once carved an arrow out of his shoulderblade in the field. Since joining ANBU, he’s collected a pale slice on his upper thigh, a striated line on his upper right shoulder, and several scars across the underside of his right wrist.
Usual Clothing: Ryouma spends most of his time these days in ANBU or jounin uniform. When he’s got an opportunity to dress in civies, however, he takes it. For casual wear Ryouma tends to rely on band tee-shirts, distressed jeans, and a dark jacket. A fancy night out may see him in a tailored, slim-fitting buttoned shirt, collar open and sleeves rolled up. He dresses more for comfort than for style, but always ends up on the edge of style anyway. At any given time, he’s more than likely to be less than fully clothed. On arduous missions, he occasionally wears a knee-brace or tight bandage wrap beneath his trousers. He always wears two sets of ID tags on doubled chains around his neck: one for himself, and one for his mother, Tousaki Miyako.
ANBU Mask: A ram, with stylized swirling horns in red.
Living Situation: Ryouma’s given up his single-room jounin apartment for an even tinier room in the ANBU dorms, which comes pre-furnished with a bedframe that’s just a little too short, a storage chest, a lamp, and a few old bloodstains. Meals in the mess are free, although Ryouma’s fairly indifferent to food that isn’t very sweet, very spicy, or very fried.
Skills
Fighting Style: Ninjutsu and taijutsu user. Competent in genjutsu, but it’s less fun for more chakra. He relies on taijutsu (in a bastardized version of the Jyuuken he watched his genin sensei use) to get him close to his opponent, and then delivers the killing blow with a palm-strike loaded with ninjutsu. He’s a very dirty fighter. Chakra natures: Fire, Water. Sensory range: 2 km.
Preferred Weapons: ninjato, kunai, and hands. His depth perception is not always trustworthy, especially in dim light, and he’s not as comfortable with ranged weapons as with close combat.
Special Jutsu: Ryouma’s unique jutsu build upon his competing chakra natures of fire and water to viciously and messily destroy the human body. During the war, he was known by reputation and rumor as the kid who melted people’s faces.
Nikutai Tokasu no Jutsu (Human Flesh Melt) – B-rank ninjutsu, uses seals Monkey, Hare, Dragon, Ox, Bird, Boar, Horse, Dragon, Monkey, Dog. Lights the hands with a sickly reddish-black chakra, and melts whatever flesh it touches and whatever lies beneath. Attacks instantly, but spreads relatively slowly. Requires physical contact. Terminates with the Ram seal and an abrupt severing of the chakra flow.
Nikutai Hakai no Jutsu (Human Body Destruction) – B-rank ninjutsu, uses the same seal sequence as the Nikutai Tokasu but adds Bird and Tiger to the end, and generates a constant surge of visible reddish-black chakra that violently decomposes any organic material in a matter of minutes. A human body takes less than 1 minute to be rendered into nasty oozy compost. This jutsu isn’t particularly useful in combat, since it needs sustained contact, but it’s good for disposing of evidence and grossing people out. It’s basically an upgraded and sustained version of the Nikutai Tokasu, and requires more chakra but does more damage.
Naizou Tokasu no Jutsu (Internal Organs Melt) – A-rank ninjutsu, Ryouma’s only original jutsu that can be utilized at any distance (up to 5 meters). Fires a jolt of chakra which, upon a direct hit, liquefies his victim’s soft organs. Can be dodged, but is absolutely fatal if it connects. Seal sequence: Ox, Hare, Bird, Boar, Hare, Monkey, Dog, Ram, Horse, Monkey, Dragon, Ox, Snake. Ryouma can use it three times a day if he’s careful, or up to six with soldier pills.
Weaknesses: Ryouma’s done his best to strengthen his left knee, but it will always be stiff and weaker than the right. His chakra reserves are high, but his jutsu are incredibly draining; he’s a little too reliant on soldier pills to keep up with them. He’s also pretty poor at space-time jutsu, prone to badly aimed translocations and weakness and nausea or bloody noses on arrival.
Service Record: Graduated at 13, after a cumulative 3.5 years in the Academy. Promoted to chuunin at 14 and sent to the front lines of the war. At 16, three days after the Kyuubi attack, he was promoted to special jounin. During the next two years he perfected the Naizou Tokasu no Jutsu, his first (and so far, only) A-rank original jutsu. He was promoted to jounin at 19 and spent the next year running A- and B-rank missions, usually the type that required either pitched battle or messy assassination.
To celebrate making it to 20, he signed up for ANBU.
Personality
General Personality Traits: Ryouma is a badly scarred survivor. He’s learned to adapt, to reshape himself to fit his circumstances, and to bury the damage; avoidance isn’t the most healthy behavior, but most of the time it works for him. He’s cheerful, charming, reckless, and shallow–and, paradoxically, deeply reserved. He’ll spend a three-hour stake-out dissecting the plot of the latest terrible samurai flick, but he never talks feelings. Or pasts. The obnoxious cockiness is a decent front for a crippled sense of self-worth. He sees his value to the village, and to the people around him, in terms of what he can do, not who he is.
Ryouma is twitchy when it comes to authority: he prefers to be in control of most situations, and he doesn’t easily give his trust or his obedience. However, he craves approval, blooms under praise, and is capable of devoted loyalty when he’s certain it’s earned. He has deep-rooted masochistic and submissive tendencies, but seldom lets himself give rein to them.
Like most high-ranking ninja, he prefers not to be touched without warning.
Ryouma’s intelligent, insatiably curious, and functionally illiterate. He’s got a mild form of visual/cognitive disability; concentrating on black characters on a white page is difficult, even mildly nauseating, and gives him headaches that last for hours. He’s gotten very good at manipulating teammates into writing his reports. He also has a finely honed memory, although he tends to only store things he considers interesting or important.
Quirks: Poor reader; he knows a handful of the kanji that show up most frequently on mission briefs, occasionally mixes up the kana, and has no patience for anything that takes more than 5 minutes to read (or write). Compulsive flirt, especially when he thinks he can get something out of it. Sleeps in the buff. Caffeine fiend. Limps a little on his left knee when he’s tired or sore, and has very little concept of personal space or modesty. Adores fancy scented soaps, shampoos, and other personal hygiene items, and devotes an unusually large portion of his field kit to travel-sized bars of night-blooming jasmine or orange-blossom soap. No gag reflex. Has a Thing about paying off his debts.
Sexual Orientation: bisexual switch, with a slight preference for subbing. He’s also a little more than slightly masochistic. In the right circumstances and with the right partner, he likes biting, being held down, orgasm denial, and dirty talk.
Gifts/Talents: Curiosity and inventiveness have combined to give him a talent for creating new (usually uniquely horrible) ninjutsu. He can pick pockets, juggle kunai without cutting himself too badly, and make really strong coffee. He’s also a champion player of Five-Finger Fillet. He has an excellent memory, particularly for sounds; he can remember a conversation or a movie word-for-word months after hearing it, and he remembers voices better than names or faces.
Flaws: Reckless and far too stubborn; he can be unsteady in tight spots and needs someone stable to rely on and to pull him back from the brink. Has an underdeveloped sense of self-preservation: he’s utterly incapable of not poking something with a stick to see what will happen next. Thinks too much, or doesn’t think at all. Sabotages romantic relationships almost as quickly as he enters them. Represses like it’s going out of style, until he snaps.
Religion and Philosophy: He’s sometimes wished there was a reason bad things happened to good people—or at least someone he could beat up about it—but on the other hand, he’s often one of those bad things. So he tries not to think about it. The closest he’s ever gotten to religious education is memorizing the Shinobi Code.
Likes and Loves: Sex. Coffee. Food with strong flavors, especially very spicy or very sweet things. Bugging his comrades or, failing that, anyone in range. Loud, fast music, especially alternative rock bands like Shuriken Force, Feral Porpoises, and Shutdown Assassin. Action movies, especially historical dramas. Soldier pills. Scented soap, especially the fancy floral types. Maps. Gossip. Sleep.
Dislikes and Hates: Being touched without warning. Being in debt with no way to repay. Undeserved arrogance. Abused authority. Uchiha. Stupid rules. Reading. Incompetence. Loneliness. Himself, occasionally.
Fears: Failing to protect someone in his charge; going blind; accidentally melting a friend; being utterly defenseless and powerless; being left behind, or leaving someone else. Losing his jutsu–or having them stolen–and realizing he has nothing else to offer Konoha.
Dreams and Ambitions: Ryouma’s spent his life focusing much more on surviving each day than on planning for the future–especially since he never particularly expected to reach it. Surviving to 20 was surprising enough, although he’d like to see his name in the Bingo Book before he dies.
Relationships
Family: Family is a touchy subject for Ryouma — probably the touchiest. He remembers the good times, sure: before his father disappeared, before the war sucked his mother into mission after mission and never gave her back. Before his alcoholic grandfather took him away from Konoha, the only home Ryouma had ever known. Ryouma loved and hated his grandfather in equal measure; he was devastated when the old man died of liver failure, when Ryouma was ten, but it was the first glimmer of hope he’d seen in years. Ryouma never speaks of him.
Friends: Ryouma is fairly casual in his friendships, but he does have a few preferred drinking buddies, including Shibata Hakone, Norita Takeshi, and, more recently, Fukui Ayane.
He’s got a healthy respect (and, okay, the remnant of a crush) for his old jounin sensei, Hyuuga Hitomi, a tough and gorgeous Branch woman who brooked no nonsense, forced her students to run until they threw up, and trained them as best she could for the war that took all of them–and only gave back two–anyway. His surviving teammate made it to chuunin, got pregnant, and retired to raise her baby. Ryouma hasn’t spoken to her for years.
Lovers: Ryouma will hit on, sleep with, and leave before breakfast with just about anyone. Most of the time he’s got fairly high standards for attractiveness (not hard to meet, in Konoha) but on his really bad days, when he’s dead-drunk and hurting, he’ll take anyone–except his teammates. Flirting’s as far as it ever goes with anyone he’s running missions with. Some relationships are too important to screw up.
Hero: Namikaze Minato, who is not only the best shinobi Konoha ever produced, but also the first person ever to express interest in Ryouma’s jutsu.
Enemies: He doesn’t really do enemies. If he has reason to kill someone, that person is dead. Preferably in a very messy fashion.
Personal History
Ryouma’s parents never married, and the demanding schedules of active-duty ninja meant that they were seldom home together, but he has a few sun-faded memories of watching them kiss on the sofa, of making eggs with his father on a lazy morning while his mother slept in. He sat on his father’s knee on long winter evenings, helping sharpen kunai, and together they made his mother laugh.
When Ryouma was five years old, Kondo Ryuu left on a mission and never came back. Ryouma refused to enter the Ninja Academy that year; his father had promised to take him on his first day. The next year, when Ryouma turned six, he signed his shaky name on the rolls himself. He’d become a ninja faster than anyone ever had, find his father, and bring him back.
By then the Third Great Ninja War was at its height, eating up ninja and spitting back bones. Ryouma was seven years old when Tousaki Miyako’s dogtags came back alone from a mission to Stone Country. The neighbor who’d looked after him when his mother was gone couldn’t keep him; the Shinobi War Orphanage was already overcrowded. The only members of the Kondo family who’d have welcomed Ryuu’s son were already dead. Konoha was glad to pawn off one grieving little boy on the grandfather who appeared for the first time, silent and angry, at his daughter’s funeral.
Tousaki Yousuke had been dismissed from the shinobi corps for drunkenness before Ryouma was even born. He’d lost wife, daughter, career, and hope to Konoha; he gained nothing back but a dark-eyed boy who’d lost everything, too. Yousuke took the boy and the compensation payment, and left the village.
They spent the next three years drifting across south-eastern Fire Country, away from the war and from anyone who knew them. Yousuke was neglectful when sober, abusive when drunk, but he could be charming when it suited him. Grieving and alone, with no one else to turn to, Ryouma loved him and hated him in equal measure. He fantasized sometimes about killing Yousuke, using a kitchen knife the way his father’d taught him to hold a kunai.
In the end, shouchuu killed Yousuke first. Ryouma walked for four weeks through a war zone to find Konoha again. Konoha guards found him three miles outside the walls, limping, shivering, with his mother’s dogtags jangling around his neck. He didn’t have the Academy entrance fee, but he’d been enrolled once before. And with the war still raging, Konoha was more than willing to accept him once again. A harried medic sorted out the half-healed mess of his left knee; an over-cramped hostel for shinobi orphans found space for one more bed.
The head sensei at the Academy, remembering a quiet but sweet child, did his best to handle a fierce, rough-spoken boy who stood nearly as tall as some of the teachers. Five years older than most of the other first-years, Ryouma found himself behind on almost everything, from the basics of chakra use to the concept of writing a sentence. What he could do—and what he did extraordinarily well—was fight. And for the next two and a half years, fighting meant becoming the best.
He graduated at thirteen, two years ahead of the students who’d entered with him. He could barely puzzle out a mission assignment, and he’d never read a book, but he could beat most first-year chuunin in a fight. He was assigned to a genin team under the stern command of Hyuuga Hitomi, along with two eleven-year-old teammates: Takamura Kenichi and Yuzuki Shouri. By that time he was already working on the first of his viciously destructive ninjutsu. At fourteen he’d mastered it, and he received a field promotion to chuunin after he melted an enemy’s arm off. Three weeks later, he was fighting on the front lines of the Third Ninja War.
He wasn’t yet sixteen when the war ended, and it took him another year and a half to work up to another promotion. By then the village was smoldering in the wake of the Kyuubi’s attack, and Konoha needed all the shinobi it could get. Three days after the last of the funerals, Ryouma had his special jounin vest and another mission. He spent the next eighteen months running every mission he could take, and filled his downtime working on his jutsu and sleeping with anyone who offered. By the age of nineteen, Ryouma had fully mastered his second chakra nature, developed his Naizou Tokasu no Jutsu, and received a promotion to full jounin. A week after he turned 20, he joined ANBU.