General Info
General Info
Name: Shikawa, Masakazu 知川正和
Nickname/Alias: Occasionally called ‘Masa’, primarily as a joke about how pretentious ‘precision’ as a part of one’s name is, and how well it reflects him
Gender: Male
Age: 15
Age Appearance: Appropriate age
Sexuality: Hetero
-====-
Loyalty
Village: Gobigakure no Sato - Village Hidden by the End; “Gobi no Kuni”
Birthplace: Gobigakure no Sato - Village Hidden by the End; “Gobi no Kuni”
Organization: Gobishi Whole (smallish, international trading company; mostly shipping)
-====-
Ninja Information
Clan/Bloodline: N/A (neither he nor I know; no plans for anything grandiose)
Rank: Chuunin
Chakra Nature: Fire
-====-
Appearance
Body Type and Shape: Pretty average build, though more muscled than other academic teens, with very little body fat. Skin color somewhere between the two extremes present in Kaminari no Kuni
Height: 5’5" / 165 cm
Weight: 125 lb / 57 kg
Hair Color: Red
Hair Style: Rather than anything that would involve a committed effort or discernment, Masakazu’s wiry, red hair is typically pulled into a tail behind his head.
Eye Color: Dark Brown
Clothing: Generally, Masakazu favors clothes that (he imagines) allow him to look inconspicuous and aid his private study, as well as clothes that let him move easily. As he has no sense of or interest in fashion or style beyond this, he typically ends up in long, form-fitting garments of gray, blue, or black. The styles of various countries and villages typically clash on him during a given day, and end up gaining attention rather than avoiding it. But people who know him and are likely to interrupt his thoughts with such observations have become used to it, rendering the issue moot.
-====-
Biography
Background: Masakazu’s mother is a member of an archetypal Gobi family: people pushed together and trying to get by in what is repeatedly the front line of war between Kumo and Iwa. The Shikawa were a patchwork of both these, as well as many other, less affiliated people. After war-time smuggling and trading with various opposed parties, they had a difficult time legitimizing. Kumo had been their greatest trade partner, in part due to family ties, but the hidden village did not reciprocate post-war. It took several hard years for the Shikawa family to establish a new, naval trade network, and not until about a decade into Masa’s life did they become semi-prominent in the northern seas.
Masakazu’s father was neither from Gobi nor a merchant. He was a ninja who’d booked passage on a Shikawa trade vessel from Uzushiogakure, which Masa’s mother happened to be on. Shortly after he arrived in Gobi, the man disappeared. The only other things Masakazu knows about the man are that he was a native of Uzushiogakure - sourcing Masakazu’s hair color - that his name was Kazumasa - sourcing Masakazu’s name - and that he’d promised to provide for his son, which did not source anything in particular.
Growing up, Masakazu had an active desire to understand the father he never knew, and the place he came from. Sadly, Uzushiogakure had been more or less razed by various other nations not too long after Masa’s birth, so he never learned any more about the presumably irresponsible ninja who’d sired him. Regardless, he’d been set on an intellectual path early on, and much of his childhood was spent learning. He always had questions for any important adults he ran across, with no particular attention to whether he was meant to ask them such things. As a result he gleaned insight into many trades and modes of thought. He also was often redirected to Gobi’s library. Early on, this was a meager place, but it seemed to grow alongside Masakazu, and he was able to study subjects vaguely related to his interests.
When not educating himself with books, Masakazu was wandering town, pursuing some sort of autodidactism via questioning or observing random people. Many did not appreciate this scrutiny from the oddly-clothed, red-haired bastard boy, but he did make friends. With those of his age, he found both fun and edification in exploring the landscape of Gobi. Swimming, climbing, stalking, and generally making themselves a nuisance to local wildlife.
Deciding the best way to learn more about his absentee father and his origins was to become a ninja, Masakazu had been in school for such. The time he spent with his few friends became devoted to taijutsu, because he lacked the chakra for serious ninjutsu, his genjutsu skill was steadily proving negligible, and his other field of study was both uninteresting and largely incomprehensible to the people he knew.
Quietly, but without making any particular effort to hide it, Shikawa Masakazu was studying the most famous art of his father’s homeland, which said place was presumably destroyed for: fuuinjutsu. Despite the Gobi library’s continual expansion, it was sadly understocked with manuals on the subject, but with much tangential research, Masakazu had learned some of the theory, and deconstructed various scrolls he purchased after passing his genin exams and acquiring the small income of that rank.
Late in his 13th year, after being encouraged by more than one instructor to look into practical ninja studies, Masakazu had taught himself how to make bomb scrolls. This brought him attention from various parties, including one ‘Hyuuga Hiroshi’. Masa had recalled questioning the man years before about doujutsu, but had not really caught on to the fact that he seemed rather important to Gobi ninja. Now it appeared there was some concern regarding a few gentlemen who had proposed to purchase Masakazu’s new bomb scrolls. This had seemed a fine idea at the time, and something of a surprise to Masa, who had not realized he could gain monetary satisfaction from his crude bombs. However, he was made aware that these men traded on the village’s black market, which seemed to be undesirable to both the Shikawa and the village training and paying Masakazu. He agreed to discontinue any black market negotiations, and instead make bomb scrolls for Gobigakure no Sato.
Some weeks after Masa’s information allowed for the capture of a few illegal merchants, two friends of these people decided they quite wanted words with Masakazu on his trip home from a paper mill. He was busy with research into paper manipulation at the time, and disinclined to go with them. When they tried to take him by force, Masakazu employed some of the paper-bending techniques he’d been studying. This combined with his moderate taijutsu proficiency and research into storing weapons allowed him to wrap the would-be kidnappers in scrolls, which became chains.
This whole episode turned out to have been a spectacle of sorts, and attracted further attention from that Hyuuga fellow. The man expressed he was impressed, and explained to the now-fourteen-year-old Masakazu that provided he agree to do more work for Gobigakure no Sato, he would be promoted to the rank of Chuunin. Understanding this as a way to both increase his research funds and become closer to answers about his father, Masakazu agreed.
Today: Since becoming a chuunin, Masakazu’s life has mostly been study and work for Gobigakure. His intellectual works are fuuinjutsu, mathematics, and cryptography. Gobigakure has employed him mostly to create bomb scrolls, but Masa is occasionally obliged to break up fights. In one instance, Masakazu had been used to guard civilians traveling out of Gobi. He was initially annoyed with the interruption to his cryptography binge, but he was able to make contact with a family who’d been refugees of Uzushio years before. He didn’t learn much, but the trip taught Masakazu that he can learn more of the things he wants to by leaving Gobi. Since then, he has made it known to his senior Gobi-nin that work outside the village would be ideal.
Personality: Masakazu is devoted to learning, with not many social graces. He generally speaks bluntly and tersely, only occasionally mustering or recognizing a witticism. He doesn’t take most people seriously, and while rarely having ill intent, is careless and honest with his words.
Despite not generally knowing what to do with them, Masakazu likes people well enough - assuming they don’t prove too interruptive of his mental processes. He gains and loses acquaintances easily, indeed forgetting names regularly. He doesn’t make assumptions about anyone until much time and evidence about them has been accrued. This allows him to be only mildly concerned to learn someone he’s known for several years was secretly a serial killer, for example. Despite this, he is capable of forming friendships, and holds these in high importance.
Masakazu can also get quite wrapped up in his thoughts with only a moment’s notice. Even in the midst of a conversation, he can become distracted, glaze his eyes over, and forget he’s meant to be interacting with some external stimuli.
He becomes restless if unable to study, and eventually irritable. Less consciously known to him is that he also gets this way about exercise and companionship.
Masa’s understanding of entertainment has narrowed over the years to only the improvement of himself or someone nearby, whether it be education, exercise, or a healthy meal.
-====-
Special Traits
Fuuinjutsu specialist; moderately skilled
Basic knowledge of cryptography
Basic knowledge of trade and economics
Chakra traded for control; Masakazu doesn’t have much innate chakra, so has taught himself fairly comprehensive control of what he does have
Genjutsu incompetent; no skill with genjutsu, and vulnerable to plausible illusions, but not illusions with mistakes
-====-
Equipment
Half a dozen small, explosive tags
(these are triggered by a particular chakra frequency within fifty or so meters; effective radius of 1/5th that; lethal radius less)
Two scrolls each sealing two kunai, in the cuffs of his
One scroll sealing ten meters or so of coiled rope
Two open kunai
A satchel with two books on theory: chakra dynamics, and cryptography
A notebook with unlined pages; 16x16cm
Red and black ink, plus multiple brushes
A bottle of a favorite adhesive
-====-
Jutsu:
Ninjutsu:
Name: Ignition Technique
Classification
Rank: D Rank
Effect: User creates a small fire between fingertips, suitable for lighting a flammable body such as kindling or oil.
Drawback: Flame remains close to fingertips. Fire-retardant gloves useful.
Name: Remote Origami Technique
Classification
Rank: E Rank
Effect: Manipulation of paper without altering the 2D shape. Bending, folding, wrapping, etc.
Drawback: Proximity required scales with chakra control. At 15, Masakazu can perform it from two meters at most.
Taijutsu:
Hand-to-hand combat techniques.
Genjutsu:
Illusionary techniques.
Fuuinjutsu
Name: Inanimate Sealing
Classification
Rank: D Rank
Effect: Sealing inanimate objects, preserving their forms
Drawback: Requires much preparation and calculation, proper notation on the seal, and close proximity.
Name: Bulk Sealing
Classification
Rank: D Rank
Effect: Seals local mass of a material, without preserving form. Ex: sand castle becomes sand ball in sealed environment
Drawback: Requires some preparation and calculation, and material gathered in one nearby mass.
Name: Fire Sealing
Classification
Rank: C Rank
Effect: User seals a small fire in a scroll, dramatically slowing time in the sealed environment so the fire takes a very long time to die out.
Drawback: A: The more time dilution desired, the more preparation needed. B: The larger the fire, the more chakra it requires to seal. C: Close proximity to fire required.
Name: Chakra Reception Glyph
Classification
Rank: B Rank
Effect: User creates a written glyph to receive a particular characteristic of chakra, such as frequency, magnitude, or natures. On receiving such chakra, the glyph ‘activates’, allowing linked fuuinjutsu to be triggered. Varies from acknowledging virtually any chakra to only a specific person’s.
Drawback: Complexity scales with specificity.
General Info
Name: Shikawa, Masakazu 知川正和
Nickname/Alias: Occasionally called ‘Masa’, primarily as a joke about how pretentious ‘precision’ as a part of one’s name is, and how well it reflects him
Gender: Male
Age: 15
Age Appearance: Appropriate age
Sexuality: Hetero
-====-
Loyalty
Village: Gobigakure no Sato - Village Hidden by the End; “Gobi no Kuni”
Birthplace: Gobigakure no Sato - Village Hidden by the End; “Gobi no Kuni”
Organization: Gobishi Whole (smallish, international trading company; mostly shipping)
-====-
Ninja Information
Clan/Bloodline: N/A (neither he nor I know; no plans for anything grandiose)
Rank: Chuunin
Chakra Nature: Fire
-====-
Appearance
Body Type and Shape: Pretty average build, though more muscled than other academic teens, with very little body fat. Skin color somewhere between the two extremes present in Kaminari no Kuni
Height: 5’5" / 165 cm
Weight: 125 lb / 57 kg
Hair Color: Red
Hair Style: Rather than anything that would involve a committed effort or discernment, Masakazu’s wiry, red hair is typically pulled into a tail behind his head.
Eye Color: Dark Brown
Clothing: Generally, Masakazu favors clothes that (he imagines) allow him to look inconspicuous and aid his private study, as well as clothes that let him move easily. As he has no sense of or interest in fashion or style beyond this, he typically ends up in long, form-fitting garments of gray, blue, or black. The styles of various countries and villages typically clash on him during a given day, and end up gaining attention rather than avoiding it. But people who know him and are likely to interrupt his thoughts with such observations have become used to it, rendering the issue moot.
-====-
Biography
Background: Masakazu’s mother is a member of an archetypal Gobi family: people pushed together and trying to get by in what is repeatedly the front line of war between Kumo and Iwa. The Shikawa were a patchwork of both these, as well as many other, less affiliated people. After war-time smuggling and trading with various opposed parties, they had a difficult time legitimizing. Kumo had been their greatest trade partner, in part due to family ties, but the hidden village did not reciprocate post-war. It took several hard years for the Shikawa family to establish a new, naval trade network, and not until about a decade into Masa’s life did they become semi-prominent in the northern seas.
Masakazu’s father was neither from Gobi nor a merchant. He was a ninja who’d booked passage on a Shikawa trade vessel from Uzushiogakure, which Masa’s mother happened to be on. Shortly after he arrived in Gobi, the man disappeared. The only other things Masakazu knows about the man are that he was a native of Uzushiogakure - sourcing Masakazu’s hair color - that his name was Kazumasa - sourcing Masakazu’s name - and that he’d promised to provide for his son, which did not source anything in particular.
Growing up, Masakazu had an active desire to understand the father he never knew, and the place he came from. Sadly, Uzushiogakure had been more or less razed by various other nations not too long after Masa’s birth, so he never learned any more about the presumably irresponsible ninja who’d sired him. Regardless, he’d been set on an intellectual path early on, and much of his childhood was spent learning. He always had questions for any important adults he ran across, with no particular attention to whether he was meant to ask them such things. As a result he gleaned insight into many trades and modes of thought. He also was often redirected to Gobi’s library. Early on, this was a meager place, but it seemed to grow alongside Masakazu, and he was able to study subjects vaguely related to his interests.
When not educating himself with books, Masakazu was wandering town, pursuing some sort of autodidactism via questioning or observing random people. Many did not appreciate this scrutiny from the oddly-clothed, red-haired bastard boy, but he did make friends. With those of his age, he found both fun and edification in exploring the landscape of Gobi. Swimming, climbing, stalking, and generally making themselves a nuisance to local wildlife.
Deciding the best way to learn more about his absentee father and his origins was to become a ninja, Masakazu had been in school for such. The time he spent with his few friends became devoted to taijutsu, because he lacked the chakra for serious ninjutsu, his genjutsu skill was steadily proving negligible, and his other field of study was both uninteresting and largely incomprehensible to the people he knew.
Quietly, but without making any particular effort to hide it, Shikawa Masakazu was studying the most famous art of his father’s homeland, which said place was presumably destroyed for: fuuinjutsu. Despite the Gobi library’s continual expansion, it was sadly understocked with manuals on the subject, but with much tangential research, Masakazu had learned some of the theory, and deconstructed various scrolls he purchased after passing his genin exams and acquiring the small income of that rank.
Late in his 13th year, after being encouraged by more than one instructor to look into practical ninja studies, Masakazu had taught himself how to make bomb scrolls. This brought him attention from various parties, including one ‘Hyuuga Hiroshi’. Masa had recalled questioning the man years before about doujutsu, but had not really caught on to the fact that he seemed rather important to Gobi ninja. Now it appeared there was some concern regarding a few gentlemen who had proposed to purchase Masakazu’s new bomb scrolls. This had seemed a fine idea at the time, and something of a surprise to Masa, who had not realized he could gain monetary satisfaction from his crude bombs. However, he was made aware that these men traded on the village’s black market, which seemed to be undesirable to both the Shikawa and the village training and paying Masakazu. He agreed to discontinue any black market negotiations, and instead make bomb scrolls for Gobigakure no Sato.
Some weeks after Masa’s information allowed for the capture of a few illegal merchants, two friends of these people decided they quite wanted words with Masakazu on his trip home from a paper mill. He was busy with research into paper manipulation at the time, and disinclined to go with them. When they tried to take him by force, Masakazu employed some of the paper-bending techniques he’d been studying. This combined with his moderate taijutsu proficiency and research into storing weapons allowed him to wrap the would-be kidnappers in scrolls, which became chains.
This whole episode turned out to have been a spectacle of sorts, and attracted further attention from that Hyuuga fellow. The man expressed he was impressed, and explained to the now-fourteen-year-old Masakazu that provided he agree to do more work for Gobigakure no Sato, he would be promoted to the rank of Chuunin. Understanding this as a way to both increase his research funds and become closer to answers about his father, Masakazu agreed.
Today: Since becoming a chuunin, Masakazu’s life has mostly been study and work for Gobigakure. His intellectual works are fuuinjutsu, mathematics, and cryptography. Gobigakure has employed him mostly to create bomb scrolls, but Masa is occasionally obliged to break up fights. In one instance, Masakazu had been used to guard civilians traveling out of Gobi. He was initially annoyed with the interruption to his cryptography binge, but he was able to make contact with a family who’d been refugees of Uzushio years before. He didn’t learn much, but the trip taught Masakazu that he can learn more of the things he wants to by leaving Gobi. Since then, he has made it known to his senior Gobi-nin that work outside the village would be ideal.
Personality: Masakazu is devoted to learning, with not many social graces. He generally speaks bluntly and tersely, only occasionally mustering or recognizing a witticism. He doesn’t take most people seriously, and while rarely having ill intent, is careless and honest with his words.
Despite not generally knowing what to do with them, Masakazu likes people well enough - assuming they don’t prove too interruptive of his mental processes. He gains and loses acquaintances easily, indeed forgetting names regularly. He doesn’t make assumptions about anyone until much time and evidence about them has been accrued. This allows him to be only mildly concerned to learn someone he’s known for several years was secretly a serial killer, for example. Despite this, he is capable of forming friendships, and holds these in high importance.
Masakazu can also get quite wrapped up in his thoughts with only a moment’s notice. Even in the midst of a conversation, he can become distracted, glaze his eyes over, and forget he’s meant to be interacting with some external stimuli.
He becomes restless if unable to study, and eventually irritable. Less consciously known to him is that he also gets this way about exercise and companionship.
Masa’s understanding of entertainment has narrowed over the years to only the improvement of himself or someone nearby, whether it be education, exercise, or a healthy meal.
-====-
Special Traits
Fuuinjutsu specialist; moderately skilled
Basic knowledge of cryptography
Basic knowledge of trade and economics
Chakra traded for control; Masakazu doesn’t have much innate chakra, so has taught himself fairly comprehensive control of what he does have
Genjutsu incompetent; no skill with genjutsu, and vulnerable to plausible illusions, but not illusions with mistakes
-====-
Equipment
Half a dozen small, explosive tags
(these are triggered by a particular chakra frequency within fifty or so meters; effective radius of 1/5th that; lethal radius less)
Two scrolls each sealing two kunai, in the cuffs of his
One scroll sealing ten meters or so of coiled rope
Two open kunai
A satchel with two books on theory: chakra dynamics, and cryptography
A notebook with unlined pages; 16x16cm
Red and black ink, plus multiple brushes
A bottle of a favorite adhesive
-====-
Jutsu:
Ninjutsu:
Name: Ignition Technique
Classification
Rank: D Rank
Effect: User creates a small fire between fingertips, suitable for lighting a flammable body such as kindling or oil.
Drawback: Flame remains close to fingertips. Fire-retardant gloves useful.
Name: Remote Origami Technique
Classification
Rank: E Rank
Effect: Manipulation of paper without altering the 2D shape. Bending, folding, wrapping, etc.
Drawback: Proximity required scales with chakra control. At 15, Masakazu can perform it from two meters at most.
Taijutsu:
Hand-to-hand combat techniques.
Genjutsu:
Illusionary techniques.
Fuuinjutsu
Name: Inanimate Sealing
Classification
Rank: D Rank
Effect: Sealing inanimate objects, preserving their forms
Drawback: Requires much preparation and calculation, proper notation on the seal, and close proximity.
Name: Bulk Sealing
Classification
Rank: D Rank
Effect: Seals local mass of a material, without preserving form. Ex: sand castle becomes sand ball in sealed environment
Drawback: Requires some preparation and calculation, and material gathered in one nearby mass.
Name: Fire Sealing
Classification
Rank: C Rank
Effect: User seals a small fire in a scroll, dramatically slowing time in the sealed environment so the fire takes a very long time to die out.
Drawback: A: The more time dilution desired, the more preparation needed. B: The larger the fire, the more chakra it requires to seal. C: Close proximity to fire required.
Name: Chakra Reception Glyph
Classification
Rank: B Rank
Effect: User creates a written glyph to receive a particular characteristic of chakra, such as frequency, magnitude, or natures. On receiving such chakra, the glyph ‘activates’, allowing linked fuuinjutsu to be triggered. Varies from acknowledging virtually any chakra to only a specific person’s.
Drawback: Complexity scales with specificity.
(Copy-paste to perfection)
Name: Name of the jutsu. Preferably in both English and Japanese.
Classification Hiden, medical, doujutsu, kinjutsu, etc.
Rank: E-S Rank.
Effect: What is the effect of the jutsu?
Drawback: What, if anything, is the drawback of the jutsu?
Name: Name of the jutsu. Preferably in both English and Japanese.
Classification Hiden, medical, doujutsu, kinjutsu, etc.
Rank: E-S Rank.
Effect: What is the effect of the jutsu?
Drawback: What, if anything, is the drawback of the jutsu?