Name: Itsuki Hatanari
Age: 25
Appearance: A rugged fellow, the stress and grime and overall unhealthy lifestyle have added at least 5 years to his appearance, man mistaking him for up to ten years to senior. His smile, while smug at times, usually feel strained and weary. His eyes are slightly sunk in and his hair is greasy and unkept. His beard is the only thing that seems to be groomed properly. He is a rather intimidating sight, at his 192 and broad shouldered physique. He often walks slightly slumped, making him seem almost simple in a way. Itsuki have a single Emperor Bullet hanging around his neck. Saved for a very special samurai he wishes dead.
Origin: Ashigaru
Former Faction: Date Dragons
Skills: Spears, Rifles, Soldiering
Fighting Style:Inoshishi-goroshi no yari (猪殺しの槍 - Boar Killing Spear)
Itsukis fighting style is nothing special in itself. The Boar Killing spear is something every spearman of the Date Dragons are taught and drilled in. Its a style that is about the reach of the spear and how to use it to stop a superior, charging enemy such as a samurai. He has however, perfected it in a way few of his fellow footmen ever managed to and outside observers have noted that he fights as fiercely as any samurai. He knows the range and pacing so well, that getting close can seem impossible at times.
Itsuki is also well versed with the Tanegashima, and will happily take out opponents from afar rather then take them on in close combat.
Weapons: Samurais Bane: A very dramatic name, Itsuki was not the one who named his spear. He doesnt really consider it worth a name. It was in fact a samurai, who had witnessed one of his compatriots charge headlong into the Mono-Edged Yari, getting evisicirated for his arrogance. The spear is superbly balanced and prolly gets more love and care then its owner. Its of the Jogekama Yari, with two prong blades, one each side of the main blade. One is pointed as a hook downwards, one upwards. Almost forming a Manji Cross.
Date “GReat Tanegashima” Gauss Rifle.i.pinimg.com/564x/00/fd/d8/00fdd83a0c…A rifle that Nobu Developed but now redesigned and outfitted to trusted Ashigaru of the Date corps. These rifles fire one round with immense force, the kick back making it very impractical unless your someone like Itsuki, who is both strong and heavy. The bullet won’t stop a RAI protected samurai in one shot. And firing it inside a smaller ship is death for everyone onboard. But it’s reliant and a very efficient weapon when fired in sequence with 50 more of its kind. IT also takes a great number of munitions, and if loaded with a Emperor bullet, that means a dead samurai.
Motivation: Itsuki is driven by two things. The desire to get as far away from the memories of Shojaka Castle, trough drink or other means and to find the general that led the attack on his home system so he can put a bullet between his eyes.
Backstory: Born in Date Territory, his father was a retired soldier who had given both an eye and a leg for the Dates, and who now lived a rather content life on a farm on a agricultural planet. He bore two sons and daughter. The oldest of the sons was Hage, who died in a rare disease at the age of 3. A year after Hages death, Minata, his wife, bore a daughter. They named her Yue, and she grew to become the households pride. Incredibly talented and intelligent, she was destined to rise in corporate ranks.
The youngest son was Itsuki, who grew like nothing else as he got older. At the age of 15 he was already 185 tall and as is the nature of quickly growing boys, a tad clumsy. His father, realizing there was no way that the notorious Date Dragons would not hesitate pick up such a promising, massive young man for their foot soldier program, he began training his son. He drilled him in everything from spear fighting, to all the dirty trick a commoner like him would have to employ to have even a ghost of a chance against the battlebred and fearsome samurai. And although he tried to instill his youngest a sense of gravity and severity regarding the situation and what was in store. But Itsuki in his ever exuberant youth, went into service with a sense of great pride nad patriotism.
Something that would soon be tested. The first crack in his rosey worldview was the way many Date Samurai treated him and his fellows. They seemed to detest the lower ranks, who fought not as great war machines or master swordsmen but as mere cannon fodder. In time, he would take extra joy in showing them just what a spear could do.
His first posting was on Iwahide, a planet near the Saiga Unions border. Date would do occassionally do business with them as both sides found NobuZai a great problem. One day, a Nobu “Rifle class” warship assaulted the station and out of the 30.000 Ashigaru stationed around the system, only 1246 survived. Out of the 410 samurai, only 5 died.
At this point, he was starting to look for an out. A way to escape the carnage. On one of his leaves, he met Osoko, a woman of such class and beuty it made him speechless. The two hit it off well, and despite her company status basically made her nobility compared to him, they had a child together.
Unfortunately, when he returned to duty, he no longer had a choice but to stay. If he deserted, it’d endanger Osoko and their unborn child. Because unlike her, honour meant a lot more than just a word samurai used to seem better than him and his peers. So he stuck it out.
Then Shojaka Castle happened. Shojaka was the station that guarded his very homeplanet. Where Osoko and he first met. He was stationed there as a marriage gift from his commander, who knew he had a child to protect and care for. Nobody expected for a prong attacked by NobuZai and TokuCorp. The fleet breached the jumpgate at great risk. Pushing into combat range even as the Shojaka and its sister platforms turned the entire place into a killing zone. The NabuZais strategy was bold and suicidal. It launched no less then 300 boarding vehicles full with Ashigaru and Red Samurai. They swarmed the system with boarding crews. Every ship at dock and revving up at the fight became more in dock as their crews had to fight NobuZai shocktroopers.
And the stations. The mighty castles and the planets underneath? They got scorched by a innitil barrage of emperor ordinance that completely destroyed the sai systems. NobuZai and TokuCorp did underestimate the sheer fierceness of the Date defenders however. Ashigarus and Samurai who were desperate to defend their homes came together in one of the most drawn out and bloody battles of the war; The Shojaka Massacre. Man to Man, door to door, corridor for corridor. For each dead samurai, the Ashigaru would break their Emperor swords up into pieces (many times under protest of the samurai) to make improvised samurai killing bullets out off.
Blood caked the walls, made the floor to slick to find footing. And in the middle of it all, a cornered, angry Itsuki. It was during that 5 day long battle, Samurais Bane gained its name. In a desperate lounge to break the Defenders ranks, a high class Red Samurai charged the Ashigaru. The noble warrior hoped that he could drive a wedge into the weakened and tired commoners. At first it worked, they fell like it was nothing.
And then, Itsuki happened. As the Samurai charged headlong into another charge, the Ashigaru braced his and several of his fallen comrades spears in front of him and began taking pot shots with his rifle. Each gauss round was shrapnell, exploding around the samurai, making it impossible for the Nobu footment to follow their lords mad charge. And when the samurai reached his target, he found himself impaled on not one, but 7 spears. In the shocked silence that followed, one person remember hearing itsuki mumble “The only good samurai, is a dead samurai” However, that was only one corridor. And the battle raged on for 3 more days after that before the Date managed to enter the system with their own armada, driving back the attackers.
In the end, 220.000 Nobu and Toku Ashigaru were dead, and over a hundred Red Samurai armors had been taken. over 400 more had been destroyed. The Date casualties were almost double of that. And two planets were so badly bombarded, the Company decided to move as much of its business elsewhere. Putting its inhabitants in unimaginable squalor.
For Itsuki, a unmarked Date vessel became his escape during the last day of the battle, sending Osoko a message to forgive his cowardice, he found out she had died during the NobuZais bombardment. However, his sister had managed to save his daughter, and was high enough in rank that she could move with the corporation to their new priority systems. Knowing that he could never go back, he became a mercenary, chasing drink and drugs to try and suppress the memories from those bloodsoaked five days.
That was 3 years ago.
Osmium
Hos
