Kitsumoto Hachirō, the Deaf Assassin

Glossary:
[+] No Upgrade
[++] One Upgrade
[+++] Two Upgrades

From

Shimogakure

Rank

C-Rank

Perks

Genius
Knowledge
Gifted

It is an undeniable fact that, amongst the strengths of Kitsumoto Hachirō, the greatest of them all is his intellect, and by a wide margin as well. Though born to a simple bloodline, holding within himself no grand and secret potential power, his mental power is comparable only to the greatest minds of the shinobi world even at his young age. He has also made considerable use of this power, his hunt for further knowledge of all kind almost obsessive in it's nature, a fact only made easier by the nature of his homeland.

Ever since he abandones his false identities and declared his intentions of revenge against his former squadmate, Kitsumoto has found the 'fire' within himself relit, and as a consequence, his mind has turned to it's full potential, not only working faster, but finding it's once-lost gift with matters of Ninjutsu and Genjutsu.

Drawbacks

Tragic Backstory
Old Wounds: Deaf
Fated Rival: Sen Yamamoto

Yet even such genius did little to save him from the horrible fate that fell upon his head - and that would change him forevermore. It was that cursed operation, 'Laughing Dragon' - ambushed by hostile forces far above their weight, their leader killed over the course of slow, agonizing days, it was little surprise that Kitsumoto perished within the following battle alongside one of his fellows - or so had been the thoughts of their last surviving teammate. In reality, Hachirō had survived - just barely - but not without a cost. Struck by a deadly technique of their enemies, he completely lost his hearing in both ears, turning him deaf - and half of his face and upper body was disfigured, marked by linear scars running across them from above to below.

Believing her to have left him for dead, he has since then harbored an hatred for Sen Yamamoto that has become almost fundamental to his being, motivating him to march on with thoughts of revenge.

The image, sadly, does not represent his disfigurement.

Chakra Nature

Water

Though by no means a master of ninjutsu, his nature of water has come to be one of the greatest tools within Hachirō's arsenal, not for their offensive capabilities but by the uses which they provide, such as water clones, creating blinding fog, or even that which has come to be his own signature technique, Hiding in the Rain.

Basics

Stealth [+++]
Subterfuge[+++]
Ninja Tools [+]
Espionage [+]
Clone [++]
Utility Jutsu [+]
Body Flicker [+]
Weapon Art: Great Kusarigama [++]
Chakra Flow [++]

Kitsumoto had, after his presumed death and subsequent criminal life, decided to abandon his original focus on the Arts of Taijutsu. After his fight with Junki Takenaga at the Chunin Exam preliminaries, however, he has found his creed of assasination to be lacking one thing - direct power. Foregoing his style of rapid assassinations using the Tantō, he has once again taken up the weapon he had first learned to fight with - the long, chained sickle and counterweight.

Advanced Jutsu

Advanced Taijutsu [+++]
Advanced Weapon Style: Bloody Mist [++]
Shadow Clone [+]
Sensory Arts: Sight & Feeling [+++]
Illusory Arts: Sight [+]
Concealment Arts [+++]

With the wounds that marked him robbing him of his hearing, there was little choice left to Hachirō but to dive deeply into the arts of sensory enhancement, something he had once left to his more capable squadmate. Through willpower, however, his capacity for the subject soon proved considerable, and his senses rose to greater heights. A powerful sight, his distance vision comparable even to young users of the Byakugan - and a feeling of touch so sensitive it could detect the vibrations borne of a fly flapping it's wings a hundred meters away Yet even this expertise paled in comparison of what he had found to be his true talent: concealment. Through knowledge obtained - with great difficulty - from lost nin of the Hidden Mist, Kitsumoto achieved a prowess in these arts as high as one of his age could gain, and greatest of these skill was the Hiding in the Rain jutsu, allowing him to vanish from sight when under falling rain - rain he himself may conjure.

Having once again taken his arms, Kitsumoto has, following the preliminaries, gone on to subject himself to an almost inhumane training regimen for his body, delving far deeper than he ever had into the arts of Taijutsu and Armed Combat. Deciding to abandon his seemingly ineffective toxins, he has also taken on the far more aggressive style of the Bloody Mist.

Hidden Techniques

Haze Clone [+]
Chakra Mode [++]
Empty Body Illusion (Custom Jutsu) [+]

At last, the most powerful of his abilities - the chakra mode. Learned from his strange new tutor, Kitsumoto is now capable of covering himself with an dark cloak of chakra, enhancing his physical prowess manyfold. Yet there can be no greater sign of the considerable change in his mindset than that of the technique he himself invented amidst his frenzied month of training, made with the intent to be able to trick even the likes of the Hyuga and their all-seeing eyes.

Backstory

In the world of shinobi, unfair as it is, there are very few things of greater importance to one's lot in life than their bloodline, and all that they may bring with them. Through a powerful bloodline, you gain inhumanly powers, abilities that raise you above the heads of every common shinobi by their very lonesome. Through an influent clan, you gain wealth, tutors, hidden scrolls possessing techniques of the highest caliber. To be born of a powerful house is to be born several dozen steps ahead of the common man.

Kitsumoto Hachirō was not born from a powerful family.

Welcomed instead to the living world into a family of relatively-well off clerks, Kitsumoto was born within the lands of Shimogakure, the Hidden Frost. Though not as grand and powerful as the towering powerhouses of the great nations, they possessed a strenght of their own, holding within their walls the largest library within the entire world. It was the greatest of the lucks experienced by the newborn Hachirō, who possessed within him unmatched natural brilliance. It was no surprise, then, that most of his childhood was spent in their reading halls, consuming books like a starving man consumes food and going through tutors as quickly as his family could afford them. It was wide knowledge, even by his first few years of age, that the young prodigy possessed intelligence only matched by the greatest minds of the world - as well as one other child, living on that very same village.

Yet such amounts of knowledged gained at such an early age did not come at a price, and soon, the young boy became enamoured by the tales of shinobi and their achievements. At the worried objections of his parents - and great joy from their village - the young Hachirō was enrolled within the Hidden Frost's very own Ninja Academy.

Yet, his stay at the academy was not as easy as one might have guessed. Although he was capable of breezing through it's academical contents as if he had already graduated, it was here at last that the consequences of his humble origins became clear. The Kitsumoto Clan - if it could be called that - was a civilian one, no shinobi within their tree for several generations already. Although his parents had been spared the horrors of the great war, they possessed no secret powers, no hidden scrolls or familial techniques they could pass down to their son; and soon, Kitsumoto began to be surpassed in practical matters by his more well connected fellows, a fact that was by no means helped by his strange obsession with keeping himself in the path of Taijutsu. Nonetheless, he graduated with flying colors - the second highest grades ever recorded within their village for well over a century, surpassed only by one other of his very own generation, and his soon to be squadmate: Sen Yamamoto.

Despite the many complaints that such genius should have been split amongst different teams, Kitsumoto Hachirō, along with Sen Yamamoto and their third squadmate, one Aoki Yoshida, were personally chosen to be tutored by the Hidden Frost's very own Laughing Dragon, Chiyoko Ao. Together, they soon went on to train for years, developing alongside each other as they underwent mission after mission. It was in these times that Hachirō's childhood fantasies had shown their true weakness, utterly refusing to go beyond the path of a warrior, even to the complaints of his teacher, who would ultimately attempt to teach him whatever she could. Yet little by little, he was learning, and together with his two squadmates, he was happy and free.

It would not last.

It seemed like a standard operation when they had been first hired to escort the Lady of the Library within those far-off island together with another team from the Hidden Mist, with little to fear besides low-ranked criminals and wild beasts. Indeed, it was - for the first month of that lengthy mission. Yet in their fourty sixth day, they were attacked - not by criminals, nor by wild beasts, but by assassins; Jonin from a foreign village with power matched only by their very team leader. What followed was a a descent into hell, as they were hunted across the island, struck from every side, from under every leaf and stone, seemingly knowing the greatest weaknesses held by their team. Chiyoko was strong indeed - yet all this strength was for naught as she was struck by repeated ambushes, day after day, protecting her fellows.

By the end, they were reduced to their lonesome, divided by their mist allies and left to wander the wilderness, never able to stop and rest. Weakened and wounded by their constant attacks, Chiyoko was able to do little as she was for a few minutes divided from her team alongside Yoshida. Left alone to protect the wounded Lady Tsugumi, Sen Yamamoto and Kitsumi had no choice but to fight off their assassins by themselves. Hachirō was struck directly by a technique - a powerful one - and his mangled form was sent falling to the ground, seemingly dead to all who saw. It was in his last moments of consciousness that he had seen that frightful sight - his last teammate, Sen Yamamoto, running away, dragging the wounded form of Lady Tsugumi, ignorant of his choked pleas.

When he had woken up in the middle of the night - covered by the foliage - and patched himself up with what little knowledge he had, the island had been long abandoned, his team long gone, his pursuers long disappeared, leaving him alone in that cursed island. Hachirō was struck by a great pain - a grim realization, that he had been left to rot - that despite all their time spent together and his efforts, he was no more than a disposable body, lacking in any bloodline or hidden secret that would have made him worth rescuing, abandoned to die by those he had considered to be his friends. In truth, his teacher had already died, sacrificing herself alongside Aoki to allow Sen Tsugumi and the last of the Mist Ninja to escape. It was a grim trick of fate, an misunderstanding of horrible proportions. Kitsumoto Hachirō had not died - but perhaps it would have been better if he had. When the reinforcements from the Hidden Mist appeared, he was already gone - and unable to be found yet seemingly gone, he was declared dead, his corpse presumed eaten by the island's wild creatures.

In reality, he had escaped from the island, propelled forth by a cold venomous hatred of all those who had betrayed him - his team, his village, and that very world of shinobi, who placed him so below others for his mediocre birth. Turning to the underworld, he became a criminal, a Lost Nin who killed for money and knowledge, strengthening himself with the ultimate goal of seeking revenge.

It has now been several years since that frightful incident, his death long forgotten by most. By the orders of a strange man dressed in white, he was hired alongside two others - worthless criminals, in his sight - to infiltrate the latest chunin exams for an unknowable purpose. Kitsumoto Hachirō readies his blade, and departs, unknowingly headed to a fateful meeting of someone he had once knew...