Ranmaru Kurosaki

Name: Ranmaru Kurosaki
Age: 36
Birthdate: September 29th
Rank: Jounin (S)

Village: Umigakure || Missing-Nin
Clan: /
Element(s): Water, Earth, Lightning
Specialties: Fuuinjutsu, Ninjutsu, Taijutsu
Special Characteristics:

Acquired Heterochromia:

Enhanced Reflexes:

Height: 5'10
Weight: 147lbs
Hair Color: Silver
Eye Color: Silver || Purple
General Description: At first glance, Ranmaru is fairly typical for someone from the village of Ice; skin tanned from the harsh glare of the sun off the snow during the unending summer days of the high tundra. His only outstanding features are that his eyes are different colors; otherwise known as acquired heterochromia. When he was teen, he sustained a nasty head injury; as a result one of his silver eyes turned purple. While not as outright dark as some, he does have a fairly healthy; at least for the region; tan to his skin. Silver hair is nothing new to the people of of his home region; many of the clans and civilians have white or silver hair; generations of living in the snow and ice have favored the pale color as an aide to hunters hiding in the snow, and because it is the best color for retaining heat, while reflecting the harmful aspects of the sun. His clothing is simple enough; tanned bear leather pants with the fur worn on the inside are perfect for keeping him warm and dry, while a similar styled wolf skin over shirt, wool tunic, and linen undershirt keep his upper body nicely warm. Shoes are... optional, for him; for some reason he's never had a problem with his feet getting cold, and only bothers to wear shoes when he needs to keep them dry; such as traveling over the ice flows or thawed rivers in the summer. In those instances, he has a set of knee-high beaver pelt boots that he can slide off and on in heartbeat; the skins perfectly waterproof and light enough to not hamper his movement at all.



Personality: For much of his life, Ranmaru was a happy enough child. A talented weaver among a clan filled with them, he was encouraged to hone his skills to their fullest. He wasn't the strongest sealer; but that was never a problem; his quality weaves made up for his lack of enhancement skills; and he was very young, not yet expected to be perfect in that aspect. Most of his clan skipped what ninja training was still available in this village; they weren't fighters normally, preferring peace and to work on their art over conflicts. He was no exception; a peaceful soul at heart, and one that would have avoided fighting for his entire life if he'd had the choice.

However, life is not always kind; and it was this darker aspect of fate that changed him so. As a teenager, a highly traumatic experience left him scarred and broken; his mind shattered into tiny bits that barely resemble a functional human being at times. Prone to fits of rage at random; his personality is now akin to someone with bi-polar schizophrenia and a serious PTSD-spectrum disorder; nightmares and hallucinations wracking his mind; at times his humanity vanishing and leaving him little more then a cold shell of a beast. Strange quirks of speech, odd desires for violence and vengeance, and a seriously disturbing fascination with collecting eyeballs marking him as a broken man.
Likes: A warm bed, a dry place to sleep, food in his belly; Ranmaru is normally a man of simple tastes. In his times of lucidity, he would rather be alone with a nicely oiled loom and plenty of raw material, left alone to produce the high quality cloth and fabric his clan is famous for. A nice, strong pot of pine-needle and moss berry tea. Maybe even a few of the rare fruits from the south lands that they manage to grow in the village gardens. When his mind snaps, everything changes. He has no care for himself and his safety; instinctual  hunting of anything that will entertain him; usually some bloody mockery of sport or vicious beast he can beat mercilessly for days at a time. A sign of his insanity; he trophy hunts for the eyeballs of anything he beats; animal eyes gouged and eaten like candy; human eyes treated like trophies; one eye preserved as a memory, the other relished like the sweetest ambrosia.
Dislikes: Ranmaru really doesn't have any dislikes, per say. He's less fond of some things versus others; but very little is actually disliked. At least, on a physical level. Mentally... now that is an entirely different story. His PTSD like state leaves him with vivid nightmares and hallucinations that he is completely unable to control, which when combined with his intense and random mood swings has left him with an almost self-loathing aspect to his personality. He hates that he is unable to control himself and his own mind; and because of that has taken to releasing his frustrations on any poor soul that he comes in contact with.
Motivations: Sadly, there is very little on the way of motivation for Ranmaru. Survival isn't really something that motivates him; death has little meaning to his mind. What motivations he had as a child are long since lost; he no longer cares to be a great weaver like his clansmen; nor does the prospect of a high rank in village and politics mean anything. He is a restless wanderer, really; with no true goals or ambition to speak of. Only the thrill of the moment can make him do anything; whatever he can find to entertain himself for a bit is it.
Fears: Fear. What does someone who has lost everything fear? Ranmaru has faced his own death and survived; multiple times. Death has no meaning to his destroyed psyche, not anymore. On some level, the last shards of the man, the few bits of who he was and could have been; that part of him fears what he has become, fears the animal that hunts monsters and men for sport and bathes in their blood; corrupts the very heart of his people by bathing his cloth bolts in his victims blood. He fears the nightmares and memories of that time; the man that made him what he is now, the reactions he still has. Or maybe, in more ways then one, his fear is really shame; shame for falling so far, for allowing that man to win and corrupt him so much.

History:

Childhood memories; fuzzy and dream-like. Everyone has them, very nearly; and most enjoy them. Time spent playing with toys and friends; running through the snow and so many snowball fights. Hours and days spent hunched over toy looms; trainers showing him the minute differences between the good and the bad; eyes straining to read the lines and patterns of stitching so tight that he needed a magnifier to see it. Happier times.

His childhood was fairly normal; he had his buddies and his friends, the usual playground bully; idolized elder cousins and brothers and annoying younger shadows. He was a bright child; smart enough to have an easy time of school, but not so much that he was a target of the teachers of jealous peers for it. He was never meant to be a ninja; his family, while practitioners of the arts of Fuuinjutsu, were not ninja in nature or status; normally. Oh, there were a few older cousins and uncles that had trained some as ninja and held moderate ranking in this village; but nothing really important. They were famous for their fabrics, not their battle skills.

He spent his youth in civilian school; well on his way to being an artisan and merchant; just as his parents wanted. He would have an easy life, make his family proud by continuing in their footsteps and perfecting their craft as each generation before him. Ranmaru, at the time, was perfectly happy to do just that.


The candles had barely been blown out on his birthday cake when the first... incident, happened. He was 13 now, a young man gangly and awkward with the growth spurts of a typical teenager. His days were busy spent relearning everything he new of how to handle his larger body and longer fingers; many a night spent trying to ignore the throb of torn fingers and stabbed hands. The loom was not a toy, it was a dangerous machine for those uncertain or untrained; he was having to grow into himself, and by extension his loom, all over again.

He'd been given a vacation of sorts; the chance to join on a special trip that some of his older cousins had put together. It was trapping season and they could use an extra set of hands; someone to watch the cabin and maintain the firewood supplies while the older teens and adult were busy setting traps or actively hunting for fresh pelts. The clan preferred to trap for animal pelts themselves; they would control the quality and damage far better that way.

He'd been alone for the better part of two days when he first noticed something... odd. Flashes of shadow past the windows, odd tracks half covered by freshly fallen snow. He was no tracker, no woodsman; he had no way of knowing exactly what was out there. His family wasn't due back for another three days; they had gone deep woods to set as many traps and snares as they possibly could before a storm rolled over the mountains. Had he been trained at all in woodland survival he would have barred the cabin up tight as he could have and sent a flare warning to his family to regroup and come save him. He didn't know, there was no way he could; his life was about to take a turn for the broken and painful.

Maybe if he'd taken some lessons from the ninja he knew; maybe if one of the older cousins had stayed behind... so many maybes and what ifs and could haves. Whatever the possibilities for difference; his fate was sealed that night. It wasn't extremely late, the clocks hadn't yet struck midnight and he was merely reading a book in a comfortable chair with a half cooled cup of tea. A rustle outside, like something dragging across the wall; he'd figured it was some branches scratching in the stiff wind.

Until the window exploded inward; showering him in glass and shattering his ability to feel safe for the rest of time. But that was for later; in that moment all he knew was shock and the start of pain, a shard of glass had whipped past his face and left a bleeding mark. A voice; deep and growled, rough from lack of use, and dripping with danger. "I've come for you, my pretty little prize. You'll make for a lovely trophy for my collection... Hehehehe..."

His mind didn't even have time to finish processing the words when the first blow landed. His vision went white from the force; he knew his jaw was dislocated from that, but there was a disconnect between his brain and body; pain wasn't felt and commands to do something, anything ignored. He was in shock from the first blow; and he was helpless. It wasn't enough apparently; blow after blow landed to his face and head; he could hear bones crack; feel sinuses flood with blood; muscles rip and tear. Brutal beating, but not even the worst. His head was reduced to blood mess and the attacker started to move down; there was a pattern to the abuse, but Ranmaru wouldn't realize this for a very long time yet.

The worst was the down time; when his attacker was sated of violence and turned... almost tender; washing away blood, resetting his nose and parts of his face so he wouldn't drown in his own blood. Removing the shards of glass from his skin only to jam them somewhere else later when the violence resumed. He was being psychologically and physically tortured; he never did figure out how long this part lasted. At least a week; in one of his unconscious lapses he'd been moved to a new place, another cabin. This one was... warmer? Warmer in temperature, almost so in design; furs covered the walls and much of the floor in thick palettes; a huge fire pit in the center of the room had the air uncomfortably warm. He wasn't sure, his best guess was that it was two or three days in this new place when the attacks... changed. The violence was less brutal; more... targeted. The attacker spoke more, whispered terrible, graphic things in his ear while he broke fingers and sliced his flesh. Leather bindings were attached to his wrists during this time; used to hang him by his wrists from the ceiling when his attacker was the most violent; other times used to hold his body in... strange position over tables and chairs; eventually bindings to his legs and ankles doing the same.

In his moments of lucidity, Ranmaru would think that he'd fallen into hell; that it couldn't get any worse for him. At least, until it did. His attacker rarely spoke to him; rarely said anything understandable. Noises, grunts, manic laughter; little else, that he could remember. It was one of the more talkative days; an easy day almost, all that had happened was a half-hearted slap attack and some barely painful carving of skin. Until then, his groin area had been left fairly untouched; a few kicks, uncomfortable pinching and pressure when his body was positioned for a new torture session. Now, hands... touching him in ways he'd never been touched; he might have been 13, well into puberty and aware of his body and urges; but he'd yet to really give them much thought or leeway; too busy to spend his free time locked away in a room touching himself like many of his peers.

Once it started, it escalated quickly; touching led to... other things; first, relatively speaking, gentle enough before the air of brutality and animalistic rage returned. As bad as things had been; this was his breaking point. He couldn't handle the violation of his body in the ways he was subjected too; the first and worst fractures of his mind happened while he was being used as a (literal) fucktoy by the man that had kidnapped and broken his mind and body. His memories of this time would only surface in his nightmares and flashbacks; no matter how hard the therapists and healers tries, he was unable to consciously remember and acknowledge exactly what was done to him.

He was ready and willing to die; months had passed and he'd given up hope. The swings between brutal violence and torture and the less physically but so very mentally destructive sexual assaults basically crushed him mind and soul into powder. It was nothing to him when his tormentor lifted him up by his wrists and started swinging him around; the pain was nothing, he barely cared that words were spoken and things were said. If he had been able to notice, he would have realized that his acceptance, his lack of fight; it was boring the elder male; he needed the fight and spark of life to beat down in order to get off, to sate his animalistic rage. Ranmaru had become almost a willing participant; the brokenness of his mind and a fairly well developed case of Stockholm Syndrome robbing his will to resist.

The snow and cold; it was the sheer shock of something so... pure, so clean; the room from before, it was soaked with his blood and sweat and tears and other fluids he couldn't name. The snow, the mountain air... it was glorious and pure; jarring in the change. He was being dragged like a hunter dragged a deer carcass; the binds of his wrists dislocating them once when his useless legs were caught by a fallen log. His hips had long been cracked out of socket, the worst that would happen there was more tissue damage. He was left to rot in a pile of fresh snow just outside the village; pure luck how he was found. Some kids looking for a place to have a snowball fight; they found the bloody trail he'd left in the snow and called their parents to investigate.  

He'd found out later that he'd been gone for the better part of 6 months. Another 6 had been spent laying in a hospital bed flirting with the line between life and death while the healers and doctors attempted to put his ravaged body right. Whoever the kidnapper was; he was extremely skilled; none of the major damage had been done in a way that wouldn't heal well. His legs and hips reset almost perfectly; arms healed and shoulders realigned; even his nose reset mostly the same. The scars... those stood out. Most were superficial; they blended into his skin unless the light hit just right; but the worst... whirls and swirls carved into his chest and back; rubbed deep with charcoal dust and soot multiple times; carved open and forced to reheal dozens of times. They left ugly, raised messes on his flesh; a reminder that would never go away; almost a mark of his shame.

As far as Ranmaru is concerned; time did not exist from the moment he first felt the snow against his skin until very nearly 5 years later; when he was just turning 19 and finally starting to show some mental recovery. Before then he'd been locked away in a special room; nothing but a soft floor, soft walls, and little else. He was so mentally broken that he couldn't be left along with anything or else he would attempt suicide, hurt himself or attack the healers trying to save him.

It was called a miracle; one day he was a feral animal, the next practically normal. It took him the better part of 6 months to convince the staff to even give him a mirror; fascinated by his appearance after so long. No scars marked his face; but his eyes... his silver eyes were wrong, different. One was purple now, the healers said that trauma to the eyes could cause discoloration; but in the deepest part of his mind he knew what it was. He'd been marked in more was then one by his kidnapper; the only thing he could remember about the man beyond his voice were his purple eyes.

The better part of a year later and he was a free man; released from the hospital and left to do whatever he wished. He might have been old by their standards; but the first thing he did was enroll in ninja lessons; diving into the world of combat even as he returned to the loom and the clan's seals; studying them from a different perspective.

He would be ready, when that man returned.


Life after his 'recovery' was busy; he refused to sit idle while awake; and his nights were spent sweating and screaming through nightmares and dreams of his time held captive. In this new life he lived he was cold to people, distant; as much for his own safety as theirs. He'd lost all ability to trust; and his mind was barely holding together; but that was for him to know. As far as the healers and his people were concerned, he was healthy and happy. He breezed through the lessons offered by the ninja school; graduating and racing up ranks quickly.

His drive to be strong; to loose himself in something physical and visceral; it gave him a power that hadn't been seen in a long time. His push to perfect his knowledge of his clan arts; he'd gone from nervously avoiding the catcher rods to weaving between them with the grace and speed of a master. He dove into books and ancient scrolls; the treasure trove of knowledge the village protected. New seals, new jutsu, new everything. Experiments with fabric blends; finding newer and stronger and more durable materials; that was his focus, his passion during this time.

He pushed and pushed and worked until he hit a wall; mental and physical. The pride of the village; the boy that had survived hell, become and animal and clawed his way back a man; he'd done all he could, learned and trained until there was nothing left. He was well on his way to becoming the protector of the village; what had once been called Sannin. He had everything a ninja could want; fame, power, admiration, a legacy set in stone.

He walked away.

Simply packed his perfected fabric bolts and his tools then walked out of the village. A note, left on his work table:

Do not come for me. I am the beast that stalks the world; and I will have my revenge.

The note was signed in his blood. It was obvious to all, their hero had turned his back and gone rouge. Few believed it at first; not until a group of his peers were found broken and skinned by his hand that his name was struck and he was branded a traitor.

Into the snowy wilds he'd gone; the hunt for the one that had broken him was on. He would have his revenge or die trying; he had no other purpose. For over a year he tracked the bastard; coming so close so many times and left howling in impotent rage at the uncaring moon when his prey slipped away. They were locked in a dance around each other; waiting for the first mistake before they would strike.

He made that mistake, made it on purpose. The elder was too good; and he was brash, impatient. It wouldn't matter in the end; not to either of them.

"You came back to me.~"

"I came back to kill you. You took away my life!"

"You had a nice little thing going for you, boy. I'd say you ruined your own life."

"You made me a beast! I'm not like them, not anymore..."

"No, you're right about that. You... you're just like me now, ain't ya boy?"

And the elder was right; the beast that had long forgotten his own name had picked a successor to his rampage, and that successor was Ranmaru. He'd broken and beat the boy; destroyed his humanity and conditioned his mind and body to be just like his own. Ranmaru would never be able to live like a normal man again; he craved the elder's violent lifestyle, in his darkest dreams he longed for the touch that had ruined him.

They both knew it.

"The forest bleeds, and the beasts dance."

Attacks launched; only now they were both grown men and fully in their prime. The savage fury of the beast versus the cunning and tools of the younger.

Again and again they clashed, tearing flesh from bone and spilling blood that melted the snow until there was nothing but bloody mud left. Yet they still attacked; still fought for dominance. One of them would win this fight; the winner would be the survivor. The breaks in the fighting were hardly that; in the downtimes for food and water they rutted like the animals they had become; the meeting of bodies on the sexual level just as violent and brutal as any of their attacks.

Days, long days melting into a week, and then two, and them more; they fought and fucked and destroyed the forest around them. Ranmaru was smaller, but younger and filled his the power of rage; he had more stamina in many ways. The elder; whom Ranmaru had taken to calling Nanpa; he was stronger and more experienced, but still older; and that would eventually be his downfall.

Even beasts had to sleep eventually. The short bouts of unconsciousness that followed the worst of the blows wasn't enough to keep going. It was Nanpa that fell asleep first; he'd just finished ridding Ranmaru hard; both of them pretty well broken after the weeks of fighting. Ranmaru woke up first; still half pinned by the larger body but in possession, or damn near enough, of the one thing he needed to win; his hand was in contact with one of the half destroyed bolts of cloth.


Even beasts had to sleep eventually. The short bouts of unconsciousness that followed the worst of the blows wasn't enough to keep going. It was Nanpa that fell asleep first; he'd just finished ridding Ranmaru hard; both of them pretty well broken after the weeks of fighting. Ranmaru woke up first; still half pinned by the larger body but in possession, or damn near enough, of the one thing he needed to win; his hand was in contact with one of the half destroyed bolts of cloth strewn over the forest.

It was time to end it. All of it. Nanpa had to die; there was no refuting that. For Ranmaru to live, he would have to end the life of the one that had made him.

It was easy... so damn easy. He turned the cloth on the brute; binding him in yard after yard of blood soaked silk; impossible to break. He didn't stop until the elder was cocooned, bound so tight he couldn't even struggle; but he'd left his head and neck exposed. On the broad chest of the beast he sad; terrible gleam of murder in his eyes; Nanpa could only laugh.

"Sooo... the cub fancies himself a man, now?"

"You knew how this would end!"

"Did I? Did I really? You seemed to be enjoying yourself highly these last few weeks."

"SHUT UP!"

Hands gripped flesh one last time; fingers digging until skin split and blood flowed. He was beyond caring what he did; his blood sang for vengeance, his mind howled for death. Had he been in a right mind he would have realized just why Nanpa died laughing, a caricature of a grin locked on his face forever. In killing him, Ranmaru had become him; sacrificed his last shreds of humanity to the dark, animalistic gods of vengeance and rage. He'd sealed his fate; the deed was done.

Nanpa was left to rot in the destroyed forest; Ranmaru was beyond caring. He was empty, numb once more. He walked, and walked, and walked until he dropped a week later; sleeping the undisturbed sleep of a child for the first time in years.

When he woke up, refreshed and ready to move on; he went to a river to wash up; finding a still pond and making the mistake of glancing into it's mirror surface.

He saw not himself looking back. He saw only Nanpa's laughing face.

His mind shattered. Forever.


RP Sample: Rudimentary skiies might not be pretty; but pretty wasn't the point; they worked and kept him moving, that was all he cared about. He'd been supremely lucky to find that log washed up on the shore; it must have floated three hundred miles to get as far north as he was. The bark was rotten; but the core wood... that was useful. A few hours and a snapped knife later, and he had the slats he needed; with some strong poles to boot. A bit of damp, twisted silk used as binding, forming, and support; and he had something passable. Now he could power-glide over the deep, powdery snow with relative ease; out pacing the hunters that thought they had him trapped against the fresh snow line.

"Not going to catch me that easily..."  

Faceclaim: Ranmaru Kurosaki - Uta no Prince-Sama