Name: Yuuhi Kurenai
Age: 19 at ANBU Trials; 20 at Tanuki Arc
Birthday: June 11, Sandaime Year 14
Rank: Special Jounin
Service: Intel
Ninja ID: 010881
Physical Appearance
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 130 lbs
Blood Type: AB
Hair: thick, black, and wavy, hanging a little below her shoulders. Usually parts her hair in the center, sometimes pulls it into a high horsetail.
Eyes: Kurenai’s eyes are her most striking feature: large, expressive, and deep crimson, with a thin black ring in the iris. They carry the Yuuhi bloodline limit, the Meikougan (Bright Crimson Eye), which allows her to see the layers of chakra that weave a genjutsu. Her brows are thin and delicately arched. On undercover missions, she generally wears contact lenses.
Skin: clear and pale; she seldom tans.
Facial Features: a beautiful, heart-shaped face, with a pointed chin, a slightly sharp nose, and full lips. She has an expert hand with makeup, though from day to day she generally sticks to blue-violet eyeshadow, mascara, and her signature Heart’s Blood lipstick.
Other Physical Traits: curvier than most combat-oriented kunoichi; she’s fit and slim, but never cultivated the hard muscles (and low body fat) of a taijutsu-user. Softness, sheathing steel.
Handedness: right-handed.
Voice: low and warm, alto. She has excellent diction and seldom swears, but when she does, she means it.
Identifying Marks: Before Kurenai’s first eros mission, she spent six hours at the hospital undergoing painful and exhausting erasure of all her scars. She’s taken care since then never to let an obvious wound scar beyond the point where she can disguise it with makeup.
Usual Clothing: Kurenai wears a tailored black or grey Intel uniform for desk duty, a special jounin uniform–occasionally modified with a sleeveless red turtleneck–when she has to, and civvies the rest of the time, both on missions and off. Off-duty, she tends to wear short skirts, tailored jeans, and silky blouses, with the occasional slinky dress. She likes shoes with a little heel. (She’s always felt she should be taller.)
Living Situation: Kurenai recently moved out of the sprawling Yuuhi family home to a small rooftop apartment in central Konoha, a short walk from Intel HQ. She’s replaced the cultivated Yuuhi gardens with flowers and vegetables in pots and boxes, and her apartment is a blend of traditional and modern; painted walls softened with traditional paper screens and wall-hangings, seasonal flowers in a small vase, shelves of books and scrolls. She keeps it scrupulously clean.
Skills
Fighting Style: Almost exclusively genjutsu. She knows and uses the basic ninjutsu and taijutsu techniques, but there’s a reason she’s not full jounin yet; she’s specialized so heavily in genjutsu that she’s merely high-chuunin level in the other areas. However, Kurenai is already one of the best young genjutsu specialists in Konoha. These days, she can beat even her grandmother three times out of five.
When she does use taijutsu, she relies on speed and agility, rather than strength.
Preferred Weapons: kunai, genjutsu.
Special Jutsu: Genjutsu are generally used to confuse, disorient, terrify, or manipulate. Kurenai can use them to kill. Genjutsu she creates with the aid of the Meikougan are so strong, and so difficult to escape, that the victim’s brain and body may accept that what it is happening to them is real–that the kunai slicing across their throat did drain their blood away, and that the heart should stop. However, ninja who are exceptionally good at combating genjutsu–or those who bear the Sharingan or the Meikougan, capable of detecting and piercing through genjutsu–are usually resistant to this form of silent assassination.
Weaknesses: She’s not terribly physically strong, and she lacks stamina. She could build up her endurance, but she hates running. Chakra reserves are high for her sex and mass, but only average when ranked against a bigger male.
Service Record: entered the Academy at 5, graduated at 10; she was ranked at the top of her class academically, but much lower in taijutsu. At thirteen, she made chuunin. She saw little front-line combat during the war; instead, her service focused on infiltration and spying behind enemy lines. Promoted to special jounin status at seventeen and recruited for Intel soon afterwards.
Personality
General Personality Traits: Kurenai can seem a little cold to those who don’t know her well; she’s quiet, reserved, and very intelligent, rather serious and a little shy. However, she’s also honest, caring, and brave, with a slight tendency to mother–or at least big-sister–her friends. Although she’s not one for casual flirting or joking around, when she does tease, it tends to be subtle needling. She’s most relaxed when she’s had a few drinks, which is one of the reasons she likes alcohol. She can be strong-willed and stubborn when she thinks she’s right, and she has no patience for bullshit.
Kunoichi who specialize in Intelligence can run very, very difficult missions, and Kurenai’s done more than her share. She’s trained to conceal her feelings and maintain constant self-control. While for the most part this is a mask she can doff and don at will, sometimes it cracks. More often, it hardens her already-formidable reserve. She knows the seduction aspect of her work is important and necessary, and she works hard to be good at it, but she appreciates that in the last several years she’s been able to shift toward more of an analyst role.
Quirks: loves reading; trashy novels are a guilty comfort but she devours nonfiction, particularly history, travel, and food memoirs. Has an extremely high alcohol tolerance, even when she’s not using a blood-metabolizing jutsu; she can out-drink most men. Extremely detail-oriented. Keeps her apartment spotlessly clean. Prefers green or herbal teas and tends to avoid caffeine; she has enough trouble sleeping as it is.
Sexual Orientation: straight
Gifts/Talents: exceptionally gifted with genjutsu. She’s also a good cook, a good listener, and a good analyst. She has a keen mind that pierces through problems to find the solution, and although she herself is emotionally reserved, she has the patience and empathy to draw others out.
Flaws: represses her problems instead of dealing with them. When she’s hurt or upset she closes herself off and does her best to hide her weakness; she copes with her emotional problems on her own, with a bottle or a book. She’s used to getting her own way, and doesn’t deal with it very well when she’s shot down; she tends to get cold and angry but not to push the issue, which can lead to problems if she is right. Worries too much, and doesn’t find it easy to hope. She can be ruthless with other people’s feelings, and with her own.
Religion and Philosophy: culturally Buddhist/Shinto, but doesn’t practice.
Likes and Loves: early mornings, the chill before dawn and the brilliance of the new sunrise; sunsets; rain on her face and wind in her hair; practicing genjutsu; reading good books; children; small animals; good food; fashion magazines; shopping; red wine and shouchuu.
Dislikes and Hates: sweets; crying; losing control of her emotions; appearing weak before others; aggressive men; sexism.
Fears: Heights. (When her genin sensei discovered this, he made her run to the top of the Hokage Monument every morning. She still hates heights. And running.)
Dreams and Ambitions: To be acknowledged as Konoha’s premier genjutsu specialist–and eventually, to train students of her own.
Relationships
Family: Kurenai loves her parents, but her life–and theirs–has been dominated by her fierce, magnificent, domineering grandmother, Yuuhi Benihime (80), who’s ruled the small Yuuhi clan for nearly fifty years. Benihime was the most famous genjutsu user of her generation, and she recognized Kurenai’s talent early. She trained Kurenai rigorously, through the Academy and after, and still quizzes her whenever she returns home.
Kurenai’s father, Yuuhi Minoru (50), is a well-respected jounin who defied his mother once in his life, when he brought his new wife home. Yuuhi Riko (47) has made an excellent career in village Intel despite never advancing past genin. She was better known for her beauty than for the strength of her chakra–which led more than one target, and her mother-in-law, to underestimate her formidable intelligence. Minoru and Riko are still active duty; Kurenai and her two younger sisters, Akane and Kaede, were largely brought up by their grandmother. Benihime and Riko cordially loathe each other; it was only when Kurenai’s genjutsu gifts manifested despite the relative weakness of her chakra that Benihime began to grudgingly forgive her son for marrying against her wishes.
Kurenai has several cousins, none of whom she’s particularly close to, but she adores her little sisters.
Friends: Hatake Kakashi was Kurenai’s childhood playmate, though they drifted apart in the Academy and quarreled badly as teenagers. She’s generally more friendly with the kunoichi of her age-group than with the men, and gets along well with her coworkers in the Intel office. She’s been close with Rin since their Academy days, and with Ueno Katsuko since Katsuko helped her out of a tight spot in Tea Country a couple of years ago. Sakamoto Ginta was one of her grandmother’s favorite students, and he and Kurenai have been competitors/allies/partners-in-crime for almost ten years.
Lovers: Kurenai likes broad shoulders, wry smiles, and quiet competence–preferably in a man with enough age and maturity to give him thoughtful opinions and sexy crows’ feet. Boys of her own age are far more annoying than interesting.
Since Kurenai also works very, very hard to divorce what she likes from what she does, she doesn’t date much.
Hero: her mother, who epitomizes “grace under pressure.” She also admires Hatake Sadayo, with whom she worked on a few of her earliest espionage missions.
Enemies: Sarutobi Asuma, the Hokage’s son, who bugged the hell out of her in the Academy, and made inane, increasingly obnoxious passes whenever they ran into each other as teenagers. Frankly, she was glad to see him leave the village, and she’s not particularly pleased to have him back.
Personal History
Kurenai’s family isn’t the most famous in Konoha, and it’s certainly not the wealthiest, but the Yuuhi clan has produced talented shinobi–and kunoichi–for nearly six generations. As a bloodline limit clan, the Yuuhi have a tendency to be insular and dictatorial; marriages are carefully arranged to strengthen the bloodline and preserve the vanishing Meikougan. Yuuhi don’t marry without the clan matriarch’s permission, and they certainly don’t bring home twenty-four year old genin and announce that the marriage took place yesterday.
Yuuhi Benihime insisted that her son divorce the girl, who’d snared him with a too-pretty face and, undoubtedly, open legs. For the first and only time in his life, Yuuhi Minoru defied his mother. He left the clan compound with his new wife, Riko, and didn’t return until the naming ceremony for their first daughter.
Benihime softened a little when she saw the blood-red eyes. The Meikougan had bred true, despite Riko’s dismal chakra and nameless background; there might yet be hope for this generation. She invited her son and his wife and daughter to return to the family home. Against her better judgment–but knowing how much clan meant to her husband–Riko agreed.
Kurenai grew up knowing her grandmother and mother disliked each other, that her father was stuck in the middle, and that she was expected to solve everything. Although her younger sister Akane was also born with the Meikougan, Kurenai’s talent was recognizable from an early age; her grandmother began teaching her the basics of chakra and illusion even before she entered the Academy.
Even if she hadn’t had the hopes of the Yuuhi clan pinned on her shoulders, Kurenai would’ve enjoyed the work. She likes genjutsu; she likes the way reality is what she makes of it, the way she can slip between worlds with a twist of chakra and fingers and a blink. She’s clever, curious, and fiercely competitive; the monthly genjutsu battles with her grandmother began when she was eight years old.
When she was fifteen, and a chuunin, Kurenai won for the first time.
She lost her virginity two months later in a coldly calculated decision. It wasn’t personal: they weren’t friends, but he wasn’t actively obnoxious, and none of her girlfriends had anything terrible to say about him. But she had a mission in a week, the type young kunoichi began preparing for while they were still in the Academy, and she didn’t want her first time to be with a man she might have to kill.
(She didn’t end up killing the target after all; she didn’t even hate him, in the end. He was kind, even sweet. Of course, he’d have killed her if he knew who she was–so it was just as well he never did.)
Seduction missions are, fortunately, rare–but Kurenai still ran more than her fair share, in her last two years as a chuunin and her first as a special jounin. She used genjutsu when she could, thought of her body as a weapon, otherwise: trained for a purpose, and good at it. When Oita Gennosuke himself dropped by–not for drinks with her father, but to talk to Kurenai–she was almost expecting him.
She’s found a good balance between fieldwork and deskwork; there’s enough stimulus in mission preparation and team briefings to keep her mind active, but there’s no danger of anyone in Intel becoming a desk-bound sloth while there is still spying to be done, information to be gathered, informants to be turned. She has a network of contacts spread out across Fire Country and into the border lands–mostly young women in brothels, who see more than anyone knows. She pays them in favors, mostly, more valuable than coin.
She still goes home once a month for dinner. Her grandmother still tests her. She wins more than she loses these days, though. Someday, she’ll win every time.