Name: "Samurai" Nakano Fuka
Nickname: As much as she'd like for people to use her
stolen rightful title, Nakano's accepted the fact that she can't actually make them.
Appearance: Fuka does not look like a graduate of a military academy or an officer in the Dragon's Combined Soldiery, her veteran status belied by her youthful appearance and sunny disposition. Having grown up with wealth and taste she dresses up whenever the weather allows her to, donning colorful kimonos and hakama in all manner of social situations. It's worth noting that to Fuka, combat is a social situation.
Outside of her dress, there are two notable abnormalities to Fuka. Firstly, her height. She's very tall for a woman, particularly one from Kagoshima, standing at 6'1. Her great height is counterbalanced by her leanness, her figure carrying the toned muscles of a long-distance runner (understandable, considering the amount of sprinting she did during her Acadamy days). The second is her left arm. If one looked closely they'd be able to notice that it's merely coated in latex to mimic living skin, an advanced prosthesis to make up for the loss of the original during an artillery barrage.
Age: 23
Origin: A native of Kagoshima, and a noble to boot. Had she stuck around Fuka would have been in line to become the
tozama daimyo of a portion of it, but she deserted instead.
Personality: Fuka is not motivated by politics or morality or any philosophy. All of those are boring stories made up by cowards to make themselves feel better about killing. Fuka fights because she's good at it and it's fun, and if people are willing to pay her to why would she turn them down? War is an adventure, a game with the highest possible stakes. She has no loyalty to anyone except her flight and the people paying it, a true mercenary.
These ever so slightly sociopathic tendencies are counterbalanced by her genuine cheerfulness. Her uninterest in house politics makes it easy for her to make friends from pretty much any corner of the Inner Sphere. She has an appreciation for the fine things in life: good clothes, good food, good music, and good times. She likes being on friendly terms with her comrades because the flight that can't work together is the first to get destroyed. A quick way to her heart is by joining her on the hunting trips she tries to schedule regularly, her love of big game trophies only accentuated by having someone to show them off to.
A holdover from Fuka's honor-bound upbringing is that she has little to no respect for captives, seeing them as both not good enough to win and not brave enough to take the honorable way out. They exist to do what she wants, whether that means her laundry or being sold for a few C-Bills.
History: The Nakanos are a line of minor nobility within the Draconis Combine, dedicated servants of House Kurita who have long served in various branches of the military and militia. Fuka was to be no different, allowed great luxury growing up at the expense of her future service. From an early age she was taught the importance of loyalty to the Coordinator and the tenets of bushido, told that she must present herself as an example to the lower classes.
A shame then, that she never paid much attention to those lessons. Fuka was always more interested in gratification than she was in service, so while she was looking forward to a military career it was entirely due to a childish fascination with war. Her relative's stories made getting shot at fun, and that was all Fuka cared about.
Even if she had wanted to join the Infantry or the Admiralty Fuka was trained in the use of BattleMechs, slipping into the cockpit of the family heirloom Archer with her father to watch him maneuver before eventually being given the controls herself. The moment she put on the Neurohelmet, she knew she didn't want to do anything else.
Military academy seemed a natural fit for a kid with a love of mechs, and indeed Fuka was enrolled at Sun Zhang, but she chafed under the strict control of enlisted life. She was noted as something of a strategic slacker, just managing to toe the line of decorum without ever impressing her instructors. The sole exception was in combat, where she proved to be a natural at shooting and brawling (although her brute force style left little room for the nuances of piloting or tactics).
But with the ongoing Fourth Succession War the Combine was not in a position to turn down recruits, even if they were perhaps uninspiring. Fuka was awarded her
daishō and assigned to the Sun Zhang Cadres, sent off to prove herself in some of the nastiest conflict zones House Kurita could find.
To the surprise of her family, her comrades, and even herself Fuka managed to excel. The shift from the training hall to the real world gave her the push needed to demonstrate her skill, using her penchant for gunnery and melee to support her lance while letting her comrades cover for her shortcomings. In one particularly noteworthy incident, her flight caught a team of FedSun mechs out of position and essentially vaporized them. In a single salvo all but one of the Davionites were killed outright, save for the pilot of the Shadow Hawk that Fuka managed to cripple.
With a successful raid under her belt Fuka happily sent her captive off to get broken in, uninterested in owning a slave but pleased with the kudos she'd get for him at home. The feeling of accomplishment carried her through the rest of the war, right up until the final few days when a bombardment blew her left arm at the shoulder.
Fuka was largely unphased by the event (once the pain subsided, of course, she'd happily admit that she was screaming like a stuck pig until the medics got some serious sedatives into her), simply chalking it up to luck. Plenty of people left the war in much worse shape than she had, and it wasn't like she couldn't afford a replacement limb. Hell, any disappointment she might have felt was quickly forgotten when she was informed that she had graduated from the Cadre and made a junior lieutenant.
The end of the war and her "wounded veteran of a noble family" status afforded Fuka some time off, sent home to convalesce before the next inevitable engagement. Now once again constrained by societal pressures she had time to consider her position. The war had been fun, but the rigor and structure of military life annoyed her. She was proud of having been made an officer, but that was only because of the sense of personal achievement. She didn't want to spend her life polishing her boots and her superiors' asses, she just wanted adventure.
Her slave was now working on the Nakano estate, and his presence gave her an idea. While she had no actual problem with his mistreatment (after all, if he didn't want to be captured he would have sat on a grenade) but his want of freedom inspired her to seize her own. Fuka deserted her family and her liege and stole their property along the way, smuggling the Bastard out of the city in a crate of laundry. After that, Alvin was left to his own devices because Fuka had her own problems.
On the run and liable to be shot for treason if discovered she beelined for the newly independent Rasalhague, intending to use it as a stopping point before continuing on in search of a company looking to hire. Conveniently, there was a company looking to hire in Rasalhague!
Now her main goal is to get her hands on a proper heavy or even assault mech, so as to continue the carnage.
Skills:
Gunnery: 5
Piloting:1
Guts:5
Tactics:1
Abilities: We'll keep track of pilot's abilities here once they earn any. These are usually beneficial modifiers for specific situations, and will be "awarded" during the RP if it feels like a pilot earned it. Same soft statistic as Skills, used mostly for flavor to give a unique flare to every pilot.
Misc:
- Members of the Pillar of Gold are expected to practice art in all its forms as part of their advanced place in society, so Fuka is a fair hand at many types of artistic expression. However, she's best as a musician, playing a steel guitar and singing.
- Speaks both her native Japanese and English perfectly, can understand French and German but struggles somewhat in speaking.
- Is well armed even outside her mech, as befitting a samurai. Besides the traditional katana and matching wakizashi she wears due to having earned them in Sun Zhang, she also keeps a modified G-150 hunting rifle, chambered in 11 millimeter for big game. The final weapon is a simple Nambu autoloader. If asked Fuka will gleefully share that it's intended for herself if her mech is ever disabled.
- Smokes, really only because she thinks it looks cool.
op2024,
Fish of Oblivion,
FourtyTwo,
Fetzen,
Andre Valias,
Noctis,
wintersoldier,
Dark Cloud,
Lunamaria Hawke,
Dog
