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[Calibur]

Contents Page

Post 2: Leaf Chuunin - Muramoto Tatsuo

Post 3: Shoda Kagero's Unity Squad

Post 4: Chop Shop - Nunchaku no Jutsu

[Calibur]

Voice Actor: Johnny Yong Bosch

Muramoto Tatsuo
aka 'The Talent'

Age: 16
Sex: Male
Height: 5'9"
Station: Shinobi
Country: Hi no Kuni
Village: Konohagakure

Rank: Chuunin
Division: Hada

Budo/Martial Way: Let go your earthly tether, enter the void and become fire.

Physicality:

Shinobi practices present a constant challenge to Tatsuo's body’s natural state. Although primarily mesomorphic, with a balanced, rectangular physique and the ability to gain muscle fairly easily, he was beset by the endomorphic trait of being unable to lose fat at the same rate.

As a child, he was fairly solid in build — stockier than the other children — and, as a result, slow. The fact that he now boasts a more athletic form is a testament to the rigorous training that he continues to endure. Having remained broad shouldered and powerful of stature, his soft skin sits atop a hardening musculature, creating a youthful yet highly functional body. However, despite his age, he is not without scars, and his forearms, lower legs, and areas of his chest and abdomen are decorated with the skin’s sigils of battle. These stand out against the healthy hue of Tatsuo’s tan, gained through considerable time spent outdoors.

While his body may have undergone a distinct transformation, his face has survived the self-improvement process largely intact. Square, blue-green eyes flecked with emerald rest on either side of a rounded, upturned nose. Below this lies Tastuo’s big mouth, which favours big smiles. He can carry off both close-lipped and toothy grins with a playful charm, a quality matched by the thick, sleek, black hair that rambunctiously tufts over the crown of his head and curls in a thick cowlick to the crest of his brow. While creating a rather aerodynamic look in profile, this is not by design. Indeed, no hair product has yet stood a chance at taming the wild look.


Clothing:

Call Tatsuo old-fashioned, but he is very much a fan of simple, practical outfits. No, seriously, call him old-fashioned; he’ll take it as a compliment. He has pretty much worn the same style since childhood, only upgrading in size or sharpening the cut of each item when his changing physique demanded it. Truly functional, versatile clothing means that he can make the most of his days, which are long.

Vests, t-shirts and open-collar shirts (both peaked and mandarin-style) comprise the bulk of his wardrobe, either layering themselves or alternating over a staple of loose trousers tucked into shinobi sandals. His preferred colours are red, white, navy blue and shades of olive green. His favourite garment reflects this: a long, changshan-style jacket, dark green with vermillion piping, and belted with an even darker sash to create an apron effect reminiscent of a martial arts gi.

He will quite often roll up the sleeves of whatever he chooses to wear so that he might free up his hands while showcasing his scars, which are firm reminders of his ongoing service to the Hidden Leaf. He is not all business, however, and over the years has allowed a few accessories to creep into his wardrobe for added style — from fingerless gloves to red-rimmed sunglasses and even the odd woven bracelet.


Personality:

Tatsuo follows the warrior way. To be a warrior is to forsake the selfish life of a fighter, of a brawler, and of any martial artist seeking enlightenment for means of validation or though altruistic service, as well as pawns who care little for their fate. To be a warrior is to already know one’s worth, relevance and relation to a greater cause. Not war, as the name might suggest, but the life cycle of the universe with the warrior in place as an active agent of balance, order and disorder, time and meaning. As such, Tatsuo considers himself a small piece within a much larger puzzle, and certainly not the centre of life as he knows it.

He is humble and forthright, having no reason to shy away from sharing his thoughts. He rarely, if ever, wishes ill upon another or judges them without due cause. But he is neither meek nor subservient unless in the presence of someone he considers to be a greater agent of balance. Being a warrior also requires vast reserves of strength, especially when it comes to character. He is strong-willed. He forms strong friendships. He’s smart and applied, and he know it. He just doesn’t flaunt it. He wasn’t born with any of these outstanding qualities. He built his own prodigious focus from the blandest of raw materials and, in doing so, freed himself from the frailties of self-doubt, self-loathing, aimlessness and jealousy.

Behind each of his actions lies a sense of inner peace, which allows for a naturally cool head and makes him slow to truly anger. But when he does, he means it. In circumstances where he feels intense emotion, he isn’t afraid of where each one might lead and knows how to channel most, particularly in battle. In matters of the heart and romance, he hasn’t quite cracked the code but endeavours to learn and, like other boys his age, competes for the attentions of the fairer sex with good-natured competitiveness, even if that means he finishes last more often than not. Highly reflective and self-aware, and quietly humorous, he has learnt to feel both deeply and fully, with a strong capacity for empathy, admitting to mistakes and embracing alternative ways of thinking.

Although his attitude has garnered much respect from superiors, given his increasingly sterling service record, some, including friends, have interpreted his mature outlook as arrogance or, worse, falseness. Some judgments of his character he recognises, but others he misses. He is not as perceptive of others as he could be, a result of his focus on the philosophical, but wisdom and naivety are not mutually exclusive and, at sixteen, he has barely sampled the experiences life has yet to throw at him. His fascination with the learning process and his acceptance that success often comes through trial and error will ensure he takes each of these in his stride.


Custom Archetype: Warrior

Archetypes: Taijutsu Specialist + Polymath
Special: Once per thread, the Warrior can will their body into a zen-like state of martial prowess, increasing any one of their Physical stats by their Willpower stat for a single post while retaining full Taijutsu bonuses.
Description: Warriors are aspiring combat specialists who strive to augment their mastery of a defining hand-to-hand style with rigorous training in complementary weapon- and chakra-based schools. Having earned a reputation as 'the cavalry', these individuals will seek out the thick of any fight, tirelessly motivated by the opportunistic ambition to become indispensable powerhouses. This knack for reinforcement also puts them in good stead to become academy teachers or division masters-at-arms.

Stat Merits: +2 to Intelligence, +1 to Tactics, +1 to Speed
Stat Flaws: -2 to Reserves, -2 to Power

Primary: Physical
Secondary: Mental
Tertiary: Chakra


Statistics:

Physical

Speed: 1 + 1* + 10 = 12 [+15 Ekitai Kenfu] = 27
Strength: 1 + 10 + (1AP) + (2 TP) = 14 [+15 Jigi o Eta Senshi] = 29
Stamina: 1 + 10 = 11 [+12 Jigi o Eta Senshi] = 23

Mental

Willpower: 1 + 12 = 13
Intelligence: 1 + 2* + 9 = 12
Tactics: 1 + 1* + 6 = 8

Chakra

Power: 1 - 2* + 10 = 9
Control: 1 + 8 = 9
Reserves: 1 - 2* + 6 + (1AP) = 6


Jutsu and Techniques:

[Ekitai Kenfu / Fluid Fist Style]

Stage I [Speed 5, Strength 3]
Stage II [Speed 8, Strength 6, Control 6]
Stage III [Speed 11, Strength 9, Control 8]
Bonus: Speed +15, Strength +12

[Jigi o Eta Senshi / Well-Timed Warrior]

Stage I [Strength 4, Speed 4]
Stage II [Strength 7, Speed 7, Intelligence 6]
Stage III [Strength 10, Speed 10, Intelligence 8]
Special: Rebound
Special: Deflect
Bonus: Strength +15, Stamina +12

[Global Ninjutsu]

Stage I
Kawarimi no Jutsu (Body Switch Technique) [Power 2, Tactics 2]
Kakuremino no Jutsu (Magic Cloak Of Invisibility Technique) [Power 3, Willpower 2]
Stage II
Kinobori/Kabenobori no Jutsu (Tree Walking / Wall Walking Technique) [Power 5, Control 4, Reserves 4]
Chakra Hikari no Jutsu (Chakra Light Technique) [Power 6, Control 6, Intelligence 4]

[Konohagakure Katon Ninjutsu]

Stage I
Katon: Ichi (Fire Element: One) [Power 4, Control 4]
Katon: Tanebi no Jutsu (Fire Element: Cinder Technique) [Intelligence 3, Reserves 3]
Stage II
Katon: Ni (Fire Element: Two) [Katon: Ichi; Power 7, Control 7, Intelligence 6]


Inventory:

[0] Shinobi Kit
[2] Limb Armour (Forearms + Shins)
[2] Short Sword with Ring Pommel (20" blade)
[3] Round Shield (mid-sized)
Item Points Remaining [1/8]


Biography:

Originally Posted by Bureaucracy of Hi no Kuni—Chuunin Review

I've been informed that when you were younger, you had a thing for playing the hero? How's that going for you?

You know what? I could actually tell you a thing or two about that. Some things I haven't said before that I'm now ready to get off my chest.

By all means.

From the beginning, then. I'll lay it out for you. When I was at the Academy ... I didn’t know anything about breaking points, sacrifice, compromise, hard truths. I weathered the exams like a good Morimura child because I was the first shinobi-potentialite in the Forestry Guild’s heredity for a hundred years. My folks, Muramoto Midori and Norio, came down on me hard when I failed my Genin exams. See, they’re both specialists in their craft. And I didn’t know what I wanted out of shinobi life. I was soft. Convinced I was a fighter but with nothing to show for it. So I was a generalist. They considered that to be weak. But after I set my sights a little lower and worked a little harder repeating my final year, I just cleared the cut-off.

A Genin by the age of twelve.

Yup. Enter the daily grind and me trying to prove I deserved the rank. Artificial ambition. There was no higher purpose to my actions. I didn’t even have a nindo. I plateaued early. Didn’t notice — kept slugging away at my interpretation of progress and, uh, set out on a pilgrimage to the nation’s sacred sites, figuring it was what one did when striving for inspiration, or in my case, a clue. I wanted to be acknowledged by my parents, my peers ... myself. But I didn’t know what that looked like. It was a short pilgrimage. Brass only gave me a week but I didn’t get further than my first destination: Hi no Tera. I bumped into this old dude, a warrior who, spoiler alert, will be featuring quite heavily in much of what I have to say.

Who was he?

An arms master by the name of Kensai: wild white hair, scars littering his body, pack full of swords, tattoos aplenty. He asked me if I wanted to die. I hadn’t meant to knock into him so my answer was instinctive rather than existential, which is what he was after. When I answered for real, it was something generic. Something about living to be a hero. He dismissed me, saying I wasn’t ready and to come find him when I was. His certainty stuck with me but the experience also left me deflated. I failed the preliminary trials to be selected for the Chuunin exams. I wasn’t even ready for those, let alone the exams themselves, so I can't imagine why my team leader thought to bend to my parents’ wishes, but my little jaunt and the conversation I'd had with Kensai certainly didn’t help.

You joined the war effort though.

Yeah. Not the most sensible decision when you’re suffering from a compromised mental state — you don’t want children on the cusp of mental breakdowns negotiating tense standoffs — but I needed the distraction. Trying to stay alive is the most extreme kind of distraction, even with someone like Akane assigned to lead my battle squad. It's also the worse kind. Nearer the end of the war effort, we were sent to knock out an enemy relay tower then wipe out resistance at an encampment below it. In this new reality, it was 'kill or be killed'. But that was short-lived. The resistance we were told to expect were the very families of our enemies, and when our extraction team's battle further up the valley initiated an avalanche, we experienced a paradigm shift of epic proportions: 'allow the vulnerable to die or risk dying ourselves.'

Akane went against directives and knowingly sacrificed our safety for that of the families. Jurou, our squad-mate, disobeyed Akane and fled. I stayed to help save the villagers and, as per Akane’s argument, Konohagakure from itself. The last time I saw her alive, she was chasing a woman and her children as they ran directly into the path of the oncoming snow. It took hours for me to dig her body out and sit with her. But who was I to be her first mourner, having held back for fear of death when she had acted in the face of it?

When you put it that way—

—you reconsider ... many things.

You postponed your post-war psych evaluation.

I did. Akane went home in a wooden box. I went home the hero of the Morimura — not only their first shinobi in a hundred years but one to have survived a war. Jurou was let off for his act of cowardice, which is what I took it to be, while Akane’s family was denied compensation for her defiance of military protocol. I was permitted time to grieve and to figure things out. I left our treehouse one morning and travelled to Hi no Tera without really meaning to, just needing to be alone. Once there, I recalled what the swordsman had said, and I realised that ending my shameful farce of an existence the right way, choosing how I went out, might be the only good thing to do.

That’s borderline suicidal. You would have been dismissed from the corps.

I knew I wasn’t ready to come back to active duty. I was thirteen and already considering leaving everything behind. That’s when I discovered it wasn’t a memory but Kensai’s actual voice from the back of the meditation suite. As odd as the situation was, I told him my answer. He threw a shield at my feet and told me to pick it up and defend myself, which I did, somehow. It satisfied him. So he trained me to live by the nindo of living and only dying if I could die well. Thus followed a period of attitude adjustment, body conditioning, hand-to-hand, weapons, tactical; gruelling, strict, disciplined. I had nothing else to live for so I threw myself into the practice. I was still soft, putty in his hands. Easily moulded into the vision he held for me. One wrong question to him and I earned five hundred push ups or an hour of water carrying. One right answer for him and I earned another lesson, which seemed indistinguishable from his punishments. But it was his words and wisdom that kept me chomping at the bit.

'You are not a hero, and you will never be immortal. You are just a tool, a weapon, manipulated by the laws of nature in grand orchestration, try as you might to rebel. Your only option? What kind of weapon you choose to be.'

Cynical. But not ... inaccurate.

My conclusion also. When I returned home, I lived for each new lesson and a life in which I might find an honourable death, closer to the way Akane must have viewed her reality. I passed the evaluation and went on to prove myself a man of my words by throwing myself into duties as a tool for the new republic. I was its scalpel, its sword, shield, crowbar, salve. I could still determine which tool I needed to be, but that this was as far as my agency went in the endless waltz of giving and taking life, the cycle that moves the world. That’s what he called it. He told me trying to end it would be as easy as stilling the wind or draining the oceans.

Impossible.

That’s how I interpreted it. Although in recollection, it sounds a lot like a dare, and a hint of the madness I wouldn’t experience until much later. But at that time, yes, impossible to end murder, end pacifism, conflict begetting peace begetting conflict. Natural disasters, epidemics, renaissances, discoveries, miracles ... they are the soul of the world addressing global imbalances, chaos and order at odds but also at work, with shinobi as agents of either or both, if we have the clarity of mind to perceive the grander scheme.

I used this new mentality to brush aside feelings of self-importance or self-service, confusing many people, a great deal of whom thought it was a sham or an ego-trip. Sounds that way, but I’ve since learned that people tend not to believe you when you’re honest about your personal treasures. The more you reveal, the more they reject. So I wasn’t overly vocal with my rationale. I simply acted as the world willed and prepared for the day when I would give my life in service of that, training with Kensai at his farmhouse just outside the Village. I was fourteen and full of zeal. Still so naive.

What do you mean?

I never asked Kensai what the price of my training was.

What happened?

Tell me what it says about Teitetsu — my last outing as a Genin.

Single shinobi requested, skill sets were a match. Dealing with smiths encroaching on a quarry belonging to the Kusanagi Guild. The guild requested the situation be defused without violence by enlisting the strongest Village Genin available backed by the authority of Hidden Leaf. You weren’t involved in Wildfire so your service record made you the clearest choice.

Someone had to stay behind and hold the fort. Strange, don’t you think, that the request was for a Genin? One who could prove their worth and receive an overdue promotion as reward, allowing them greater freedom of movement, and missions with greater stakes.

A Genin seemed sufficient. You defeated the swordsman the smiths had hired without even drawing your own blade.

A fated encounter. Who could have seen that coming?

I don’t understand. Where’s this price you mentioned?

I’m getting there. See, there’s another reason I stayed at home during Wildfire. Kensai had promised me a very special lesson. When I returned from Teitetsu, he asked what I had learned from my recent confrontation. I spoke of they way I’d outmanoeuvred the swordsman. He had then asked if I was proud, and I lied but he saw through that. So instead of a lesson, I got a lecture: 'Pride is a possessive genjutsu. When a child takes their first step in a room of seasoned soldiers, their pride means nothing. When a winner is rewarded by a panel of masters, pride is next to nothing. When one reaches enlightenment, pride can cost them everything. And when nature gives life or rips it away ... does she even feel?’ He wanted me to willingly dull my emotions.

Part of his training?

Part of his price. I was still meditating on the matter later that week when the alarms sounded to warn of the invasion. When I came up against those strange skeletal people near the hospital, I was only saved by their lack of free will and my own abundance of it. I’d say things got stranger after the ANBU, of all people, showed up, but frankly the sacrificial summonings and deadly man-beast-things were on par with that lot being back on the scene. I couldn’t handle the culture of suspicion surrounding the Sanada, ANBU, Centurions or Hokage, primarily because the bare information that we had to go on wasn't enough to form any kind of polished opinion, and I had to be sure that I was being used as a tool for the right reasons, by the right people.

But I did discover something different about me. I wasn’t proud of what I’d done; defending the Village had been an act of necessity. My being there wasn’t some personal accomplishment. I had simply taken part in another one of the world’s balancing acts.

Like a leaf on the wind. Is that how you took the restructuring of our divisions too?

I like that simile. Yes. I think I rode that wave with the same kind of professionalism. Hada was the natural choice. I worked well in the joint venture with Omoi infiltrators in Kousai, even if the boss did get away. And I didn’t feel the shame I expected when we failed. Something was definitely different, and Kensai knew it. During one of our sparring bouts, he stood back and quoted the Renchishin military proverb: ’When the student is ready, the master will appear’. He informed me that he approved of my attitude, and that he had long awaited the day he knew I would come around. That’s when he bestowed upon me a mantra worthy of my constant vigil against shame, pride, doubt, weakness:

“Let go your earthly tether, enter the void, empty, and become…”

Become?

Whatever was needed to relinquish human fault and become something primal. Something of the world in which he lived and into which I had been initiated. Trust is a powerful thing. So’s an elbow to the sternum. He caught me off guard, sending me right through the wall of his shack. He practically snarled when he asked what my shame told me to do. What my doubt or disbelief told me to do. I simply got back up and fought him, realising how flimsy the building was, and how it stank of disuse. Kensai didn’t live there. Kensai had no past to speak of, none that he’d ever told me. No one had ever known who I was talking about when I mentioned him. He had no earthly tether. He was a ghost.

And that was the price? Becoming like him?

...

You have no idea. Yes, but not in that way. Last year, I was on a mission with a Seishou tracker named Eiki. Our plan was to take a small skiff towards the bay of Yokuchi no Kagarinai where we believed a rogue shinobi to be hiding amongst a collection of unmanned outriggers and yachts that had been pushed together in a recent storm. We were belly down, so the attack came from above, splitting our boat in half and dragging both of us into the depths.

Let go my earthly tether, I thought, a pair of hands around my throat.
Enter the void, with the world darkening and Eiki fading from view.
Empty, squeezed so by the water pressure and the assailant on my back.

This was death. Not a mantra. It’s how we let go when the end comes for us. Or the end of one life, at least.

Becoming something else?

An embodiment of pain? I survived. I awoke alone in a storehouse on the shore. Then my attackers found me and started pouring in. I remember being dragged across the floor, thrown into a wall, stabbed repeatedly. Blacking out. Coming back. Blacking out again.

How was this possible?

I’ll tell you how. Kensai. He was behind it all. The mission, the attackers, saving me from the water, all because he needed to see the absolute extent of my resolve when I came face to face with death’s door again and again. What did I do? How did I respond? Did I die in service of some country? Or did I will myself to survive to serve something greater. It had been his plan all along. To break me, then remake me, if I had the spark he was looking for, as someone who could, in his words, transcend any single country. For me to betray Konoha and join him.

You discovered this—

After I had broken my enemies and fulfilled Kensai’s wishes. The truth is, he had taught me all I would ever need in order to choose whether to embrace society’s way and be overcome by emotion, or embrace the world’s way and discard emotion. To coin your simile, stay a leaf on the tree and wither, or a leaf in the wind and go wherever that took me. Except there was a third option: rejection of the dichotomy; Kensai’s secret way, taught by acknowledging the fringes of his instruction, where I wasn’t a leaf at all but a true ... primal entity. Something outside the natural order. His lessons had been designed to test whether I could resist indoctrination by all mentors and forge my own way. It was the awakening of my Will. So I let them in, all the emotions. An inferno of fear for Eiki’s safety, of physical and existential anguish in the moment, the shame of defeat, the fury at what had been done, the joy to have lived, the greed of desiring a moment longer, all needing somewhere to go. Uncontrolled, they were liabilities, and released, useless. But harnessed? Directed? I chose to become the life-giving, life-ending Flame. Instinct beyond reason, blinding in its intensity. The next hand that came for me? Snapped its thumb. Grabbed from either side? I used my palms to stun, fingers to gouge, knuckles to crack, elbows to shock — Phantom Step, Lunging Palm Strike, Capture Step. They drew blades? I drew on my environment. A crate for a shield, a broken pot sherd like an axe head. Eiki’s target had escaped, but I paralysed their leader, Kozue, from the first thoracic vertebra down. He’d been the target at Kousai.

And this man Kensai had been involved in that also?

I don’t think so ... but I have a feeling he knew where to find Kozue.

Above all, Eiki had been murdered like a pawn for all this to happen. So once I had recovered, I sought out Kensai at Hi no Tera to try to make sense of it all. And what did he tell me? That all had occurred as he had ordained. The price of this lesson was Eiki’s life.

It’s alright. Take a moment.

It’s fine. I’ve come to terms. In the spirit of rejection, hearing what he had to say, and how proud he was, I rejected this grand test of his to find a true disciple. He had never actually bought into what he was selling. He had manipulated me from the beginning! The path to zen that I had discovered was most certainly not Kensai's path. He was so far from his earthly tether that he was lost in a different kind of void. My void was my totality, not empty but full to the brim with my humanity. But I was now past the point of return to a time before I’d become fire, where all the others had apparently faltered. 'Others' he said. How many others had there been?

How many dead kids?!

I called him out as a sick, twisted con artist and he put his hand around my throat to ask me one final time if I wanted to die. Was he willing to unmake his greatest creation because I didn’t accept him? Was he that proud? I saw it for what it was — something that could cost an enlightened man everything. So I asked what was more important: killing me or seeing how it played out?

Checkmate King.

Perhaps. I haven’t seen him since but he might still be out there, pulling strings. I get the feeling that he was still playing me at the end and that it was just another one of his ruses, but I haven't allowed it to distract me from my duties. If he ever seeks to control me or I find out that he’s set his sights on someone else, it's my job to deal with him.

Is that something you feel a Chuunin of sixteen can feasibly do?

Maybe, maybe not. I've still got a long way to go until I can be certain.

But my warrior way against his? My Will of Fire?

I'd bet on that any day.

Other Info:

Various influences include:
[+] Steve Rogers (Marvel Comics)
[+] Ashitaka (Princess Mononoke)
[+] Bolin (The Legend of Korra)
[+] Tien (Ong Bak 2)
[+] Kyle Rayner (DC Comics)
[+] Ip Man (Donnie Yen)
[+] Jacen Solo (Star Wars Legends)


The Warrior Way:

Intro: Light of Nibel
Outro: Falcon

Pilot: Extra-Curricular Studies (+1AP Strength, +1AP Reserves, +1AP Kakuremino no Jutsu, +1AP Chakra Hikari no Jutsu)
Episode I: Counterfeit Merchandise (feat. The Fist) (+2 Strength, +Rebound)

[Calibur]

Unity Squad 080: NPCs

Name: Saionji Miwa
Alias: "Highwire"
Age: 19
Archetype: Assassin
Shinobi Rank: Chuunin
Military Rank: Corporal
Division: Intelligence - Investigator




Name: Ingakankei Akihiro
Alias: "Beast Mode"
Age: 18
Archetype: Druid
Shinobi Rank: Chuunin
Military Rank: Corporal
Division: Combat - Shock Trooper
Pet: Jun (Clouded Leopard - Chuunin Rank)



Name: Yamane Ren
Alias: "Shrike"
Age: 18
Archetype: Lightning Dilettante
Shinobi Rank: Chuunin
Military Rank: Corporal
Division: Engineering - Field Mechanic

-------------------------------------------------------------

[Calibur]

-------------------------------------

For Kam:
Soul Armour - Phantom Furnace
Tiered abilities for advancement in soul forge*
- feet - jets of hot air and sparks from boots (propulsion, blast in kick)
- arms - jets of hot air and sparks from between plates (propulsion, escape, blast from elbow)
- helmet - glowing eyes and short range heat/spark optical blasts*
- chest - smoke vent, covering field of play in white, near-opaque, cloying smokescreen

-------------------------------------

Nunchaku no Jutsu

A: Strength
B: Speed
C: Stamina
D: Tactics
E: Willpower

Style Basis: Iaijutsu/Weapon

Style History:

Nunchaku, often termed ‘nunchuks’, ‘chainsticks’ or ‘danger sticks’ are weapons of force, speed and unpredictability. Yet knowledge of these practical attributes is always preceded by a rather mythic infamy, as rice flails converted by farmers into improvised armaments during a time of revolution. And so, as simple peasants’ weapons, they are often relegated to the footnotes of armouries, their usefulness in modern warfare undervalued and their presence on the battlefield almost nil. Few beyond the shinobi are privy to the unabridged history of the weapon - one which inspired its adoption by the masters of many schools as a form of supplementary training to build coordination, quickness and self-restraint.

Its origin is one of nobility, sacrifice and resilience.

In a time when the domains were united, aristocrats serving the government as officers, tax collectors and the like were known to practise fighting arts as a necessity, their very lives and livelihoods bound to these roles as protectors and keepers of the law. Yet when the prohibitive legislation tied to their positions denied them the chance to scale other government occupations when the economy dipped, most were reduced to beggary before being granted to right to work for themselves as merchants, farmers and craftsmen. Naturally, they were wont to revolt, only to have their rights further reduced, including the privilege of working for the government or bearing arms.

As princes became paupers, they moved into villages to survive this harsh new world, only to be met by the resentment of those already in situ. Defending themselves on all sides, from their new neighbours and the bandits who later arrived to exploit the sudden boom in food production, these ‘farmer princes’ were forced to refresh their fighting skills. Deprived of their traditional weaponry, they resorted to improvising staffs from sticks, tonfa from millstone handles, nunti-bo from fishermen’s gaffs and kuwa from hoes. The nunchaku was one of the few weapons developed by design, compensating for a lack of reach with sheer force and swiftness. While at a disadvantage against longer weapons like swords, it became a favourite against mobs of opponents brandishing short range weaponry and bare fists.

Easy to conceal and carry, it was the perfect tool for self-defence and gaining the upper hand in a street fight. When wielded alone to accompany unarmed techniques, or paired with another, its hardened handles could deliver blunt force while its cord could be wrapped around attacking weapons and limbs to immobilise or disarm opponents. Many centuries later, the descendants of its inventors would ascend to positions of power once more, only this time as shinobi, masters of concealment, with their forefathers' improvised combat mechanics honed into fully established schools.

Style Information:

Construction

Typical nunchaku consist of two equal lengths of wood connected by a rope (himo) or chain (kusari), each section either rounded or given an octagonal cross-section to create an edged effect. The ideal length of each piece will be long enough to protect the forearm when held in a high grip near the top of the shaft (kontoh). The ideal length of the connecting cord will be just long enough for the user to lay it across their palm with the sticks hanging perpendicular to the ground. The weapon should also be balanced so that the practitioner can perform more advanced ‘low-grip’ moves such as overhand twirls. Weight will generally sit towards the sticks’ outer edges for maximum control of swing arcs. The most common materials for the shafts are strong, flexible woods that have been hardened under mud for several years then finely sanded and stained for preservation. However, metal shafts do exist, as do telescopic/retractable handles, nunchaku with knives and scythes on their tips, and those with blades concealed inside the rods.

Style Requirements: Nunchaku (single/dual)

Stage I
Requirements: 4 Strength, 4 Speed
Bonus: +5 Strength, +4 Speed
Specials: 2 Tactics, 2 Willpower

Stage II
Requirements: 7 Strength, 7 Speed, 6 Tactics
Bonus: +5 Strength, +4 Speed
Specials: 4 Tactics, 4 Willpower

Stage III
Requirements: 10 Strength, 10 Speed, 8 Tactics
Bonus: +5 Strength, +4 Speed
Specials: 7 Tactics, 7 Willpower, 6 Intelligence

Stage IV
Requirements: 16 Strength, 16 Speed, 11 Stamina, 14 Tactics
Bonus: +5 Strength, +4 Speed
Specials: 10 Tactics, 10 Willpower, 8 Intelligence

Stage V
Requirements: 20 Strength, 20 Speed, 16 Stamina, 16 Tactics
Bonus: +5 Strength, +4 Speed
Specials: 15 Tactics, 15 Willpower, 13 Intelligence

Stage VI
Requirements: 26 Strength, 26 Speed, 23 Stamina, 20 Tactics, 16 Willpower
Bonus: +5 Strength, +4 Speed
Specials: 19 Tactics, 19 Willpower, 18 Intelligence

Stage VII
Requirements: 34 Strength, 34 Speed, 31 Stamina, 25 Tactics, 19 Willpower
Bonus: +5 Strength, +4 Speed
Specials: 26 Tactics, 25 Willpower, 24 Intelligence

[Calibur]

Those Seeking Vengeance
Part III: Liberating Libertalia



Hashimoto Daisuke | Chouku Shuju | Kansei Tanryoku