Ren Fujino | Gojinka/The Nightmare of the Kurotori
![]() ____________________________________________________ C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N Name Ren Fujino Nicknames/Aliases Ren to his friends, Gojinka to strangers, occasionally “foolish boy” to Tsuki, and “Nightmare of the Kurotori” to those on the receiving end of his fury Birth City/District: New-Paris Age: 22 Height 5’10 or 1.77 m Racial Background: Irish/Japanese Race: Y.S.G Natural Born Hair Color: Red Eye Color: Yellow Appearance: Ren inherited his mother’s bright red hair, one of the only things that ties him to his human origins. Most of his body is covered in charcoal colored fur, his legs ending in cloven hooves and his hands tapering into sharp, black claws. What little exposed skin one can see is a silvery-grey in color, contrasting against his yellow, predatory eyes. Wings of mottled brown and red feathers stretch out from his back above a cobalt blue tail covered in snakeskin. Its eyes track those surrounding it with a baleful intelligence, occasionally letting out a low hiss or widening its maw just enough to reveal a hint of fang. Within his own mouth, a forked tongue hides behind a row of sharp teeth. Curling horns of black obsidian crown Ren’s monstrous form. Mutation Marker(s):
Personality: Complicated is a good word to start with. Ren lives his life fast and recklessly when his time is his own, whether that’s soaring above the streets by wing or hoverboard or racing through them atop his motorcycle. When Ren needs to blow off steam, he sheds the trappings of his humanity and gives into the base, animalistic urge kerneled at the center of his brain to just… Go! He laughs easily, loves to have fun, and enjoys a wide variety of interests beyond the kinetic. History and yokai science are of particular fascination to him. At the same time, he has a cold streak and a bit of a chip on his shoulder from the circumstances of his upbringing. As much as he loves Tsuki and is fiercely loyal to the gang, he can’t stand the sense that he’s being stifled, and wants desperately to return to his childhood, one that was free of the trappings of human society with all of its rules and judgments. He knows such a thing would be impossibly foolish, so the reckless ideal persists only as a dream to escape within. In combat, he will usually focus on resolving the conflict as swiftly as possible regardless of the brutality involved, though there are some days that something resentful sinks into his stomach and stays there until it worms its way out. As such, Ren has been accused of “playing with his food” on more than one occasion, toying cruelly with combatants that never had a hope of defeating him in the first place. Ren is contradictorily both prideful of himself yet not usually one to put down the abilities of others. So while his arrogance can at times propel him into dangerous situations, he still has full ability to appreciate and admire the successes of others. Aspirations:
Fears:
Vehicle: Mitsubishi Horizon ZR6 Some of Ren’s favorite memories growing up were speeding along the streets of Neo-Tokyo clinging to Tsuki’s back as she raced forward with her ZR6. It was unsurprising but extremely exciting for Ren that he was gifted with the same bike when he was old enough to ride on his own. Ren’s is deep red with blue highlights, and has all the same functionalities as his mother’s, except for a handful of modifications Tsuki did herself to make the vehicle more comfortable to use in Ren’s form. P O W E R I N F O R M A T I O N Strengths/Natural Abilities:
Weaknesses/Flaws:
Y.S.G Ability(ies): Basic Ability: Flame of the Dragons Ren has command over a source of mystical fire, able to breathe it from his lungs in a wide cone or summon it to his hands to throw bursts of it at his enemies from afar. This flame can also augment physical attacks or otherwise be manipulated into various shapes and forms by Ren. Consequently standard fire cannot harm him and he has a certain degree of resilience to energy based weapons. First Awakening: Draconic Command Like the legendary dragons of old, there is a kind of regal savagery in the way Ren carries himself. This innate quality can be amplified into a powerful command that only the strongest YG holders could resist, even certain yokai will fall under Ren’s sway. The effect is weaker the more individuals Ren tries to command at once, while able to reach maximum potency when focused on a single individual. Powerful yokai, YSG holders, and extremely exceptional zero percenters have a higher ability to combat the enchantment. Naturally this power is most effective on those that have reason to fear or respect Ren. This power has fairly diminishing returns if used many times over a single day. Additionally, failing to command a powerful individual causes Ren to experience psychic blowback that can range from temporarily stunning to physically harming him. The final downside is that the more adverse an individual is to following a given command, the more resilient they become to the effect in the future. Second Awakening: Serpentine Awakening In desperate times, the ever faithful and ever cunning Little Orochi may fuse its essence with Ren’s own, initiating a powerful transformation that begins to scratch the surface of the monstrous godhood that Ren could be capable of if he ever let go of his humanity entirely. His flames burn hotter, his commands bend wills with greater ease, and his resilience to harm vastly increases. The fusion of Ren and Orochi moves swifter, strikes harder, and sees further. Indeed, while in this form Ren seems to hold an awareness of events outside his ken, able to predict the movements of his opponents in combat and otherwise receive limited visions of the future, whether they help him in the moment or not. This ability is potent, but limited. While an unknown factor, repeated transformations bear the risk of complete yokaification for Ren, or otherwise death, as the few times he has undergone this transformation, he always emerges from it extremely exhausted and pained ![]() Soul Binder: Naginata - The naginata suits Ren perfectly as a weapon. A powerful polearm capable of doling out deadly cuts at medium range. Its blade is so sharp it has yet to find a substance it couldn’t cut through when given sufficient effort. Ren doesn’t often wield his soul binder weapon, but when he does, his fighting style takes on a more disciplined, focused attitude reflective of the fact that all his expertise with the naginata is entirely thanks to Tsuki’s training. E X T R A Anything else? | H i s t o r y His Name Was Supposed To Be Lucien The light rail filled the interior cabin with a soft hum as it traveled smoothly through the air. Charlotte Alarie cradled the babe in her arms with a furrowed brow, trying once again to remove the pacifier from its mouth so that she could place the tip of the bottle into her baby’s mouth. Its teeth were already grown in, and far too sharp, to feed any other way. Just like last time, as her hand inched closer, a flash of blue darted from within the bundle and nipped at her hand. She managed to jerk back just in time. Was it venomous? She didn’t even have a clue. How large were the horns on its head going to get? Flinching, she scolded herself internally. She didn’t mean to call him an it. It was just- he wasn’t human. Even with this yokai gene thing… he looked more like a Nue or something out of French myth than an actual human baby. That’s why she had to take him to see his father and demand that he do something about this, whether he was prepared to take responsibility as a parent or not. Hence the trip from New-Paris to Neo-Tokyo. She frowned down at the azure snake that glowered at her. “You’re part of my child. That means I’m doing all this for you as well,” She scolded in a firm tone. “So behave.” To her surprise, the snake actually retreated back into the swaddle as she pulled the pacifier free, quickly replacing it with the bottle of milk. For a brief, fleeting moment, her baby’s reptilian eyes flickered open and met with her own. Something in her heart twinged as she let out a soft gasp. Golden light from the setting sun filtered through the windows and cast the pair in a heavenly aura. She understood, then. Her baby was beautiful. “Your name, I think it will be-” As she spoke, only five minutes out from reaching Neo-Tokyo, a monster that Charlotte never had the chance to see collided with the light rail and sent it careening to the ground below, and all passengers but one to their deaths. The monstrous baby would have sobbed, if not for the scolding hiss given by his serpentine companion. Somewhere deep inside its mind, the Little Orochi knew that only silence would allow them to survive through the night. The Brokenlands Book The Chimera Boy grew up with only the wisps of memory of the life that was ripped from him. The world was big, scary, and fantastical. There was too much to run from and too much to run towards to worry about things like why and how. What wonders and horrors he and the Little Orochi beheld in their time within the Brokenlands. Yokai the size of elephants but twice as docile. Creatures that bartered in strange languages and traded faces as freely as others might exchange pleasantries. Dark, lurking horrors in the depths of crystalline caves, and dragons soaring across the sky with scales glittering in all the hues of the rainbow. The noble Kotobuki that would guide the Chimera Boy across dangerous expanses, and the hateful Nue that hunted him through its territory while speaking in the tongue of humans. He and the Little Orochi made many friends, and made many enemies too. Wailing women and tearful trolls and wide mouthed cats and more filtered in and out of the Chimera Boy’s life. Yet, all was ephemeral. He forged east for months and years in a crooked, uneven path, guided as much by his own sourceless instincts as the insistent hissing of his brother snake. The Walls of Neo-Tokyo When at the age of five, although he didn’t know it, the Chimera Boy at least reached the thing that he sought. He crept closer to Neo-Tokyo’s border in time to be caught up in a confluence of chaos. There were people in strange clothing wielding glowing weapons and a tall, horned yokai leading a host of creatures, many of which resembled species that the Chimera Boy had seen before in his travels. He wanted to get closer and ask what was going on but as he did so everything erupted. Explosions, screams, sprays of blood and clouds of dirt decorated what was now a battlefield. Loud bangs echoed around him. Smoke filled the air as the strangers and the yokai charged against each other with battle cries of hatred. He stumbled blindly through this chaos until he collapsed and realized faintly that he was bleeding. Through flickering consciousness he remembered a pair of wings, silver hair that seemed to shine despite the smoke and darkness all around, and a solitary blue eye drawing nearer and nearer. Mama Tsuki That day during the chaos of a Rank 4 Outbreak, Tsukiyama Fujino became something she never bargained for. A mother. Raising the boy, whom she named Ren, was not particularly easy. To say nothing of having to teach him both English and Japanese (curiously, he was found speaking a kind of broken, self-made language that combined elements of French, Japanese, and other dialects she had never even heard of), the entire adoption was illegal to begin with. At this stage in her life she did not have the wealth nor prestige to push this adoption through the proper channels. So she didn’t. There were other challenges. The apparently sapient snake head growing from his tail seemed to hate her, he refused to wear any form of clothing except when explicitly necessary (a debate that Ren has long since won), and if anyone else wanted to try raising a feral, flying child, she did not recommend it. Somehow, the two (or three, if you count the tail) of them muddled through it, and in time their communication improved as Ren’s grasp of language and the world around him was strengthened. He was always going to be reckless, but at least he wasn’t demanding that “Little Orochi” be given language lessons too anymore. Besides, something about the way that snake looked at her made her think it understood her just fine. Loyalty As Ren aged, he expressed a desire to become a Jaeger, a desire that Tsuki would shut down at every turn. It became a running point of contention between them, one that only worsened when Tsuki would quit the entire program and refused to give Ren any explanation as to why. All he wanted was to be around more people like him, and to understand yokai better. Some days he felt more isolated in a city of billions than he did alone in the wilderness of the Brokenlands. It’s not something the two of them would ever get over. Time heals wounds, but it leaves behind scars too. Tsuki was his mother, and he was loyal to her. So if her leaving the Jaegers was the death knell of his aspiration, her forming the Kurotori was the final nail on that coffin. Of course he was going to stick by her side. She educated him, raised him, loved and trained him. He was the natural choice to be her lieutenant, anyways. A good thing too, as its doubtful that Ren’s pride would have allowed for any other outcome. The Nightmare of the Kurotori Ren quickly proved himself to be a dedicated lieutenant and a savage opponent. Sometimes, too savage for Tsuki’s preference. He has received many scoldings for the speed with which he resorts to brutality when faced with a problem, and in a handful of instances has been teleported away by Tsuki for going too far entirely. When that happens, there are times where she doesn’t see him for days at a time after. Whether he’s roosting in random rooftops or slumming it at some motel, those are the times that Ren needs to listen to Little Orochi’s hissing insistence and get away from it all. And this leads the story into the present. Ren is as reckless and fearsome as ever, but he cares about the gang and he gets things done. As far as he’s concerned, everything will somehow work itself out. Little Orochi knows better. |
Dropping my character here after getting the OK from Vidar