Ayane Hasegawa

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Naruto: Academy Edition

Concept

Daughter to a noble merchant and born a near-limbless and frail cripple, Ayane Hasegawa has used the considerable resources and reach of her family to have an array of wood-and-metal prosthetics fitted over her feeble body, manipulated by a branch of Puppet Arts that almost allows her to control it as if it were her own.

Prodigy of artistry and craftsmanship, she uses an array of tools, weapons and devices to practice a blend of ninjutsu and taijutsu. At her level of experience, this is little more than an relatively impressive grasp of fundamental martial arts, ninja weaponry and a decently advanced application of Chakra Flow, but has been enough to mark her as a keen student.

She has entered the Hidden Moon Academy at an advanced age and the protest of her parents. Physically hobbled for most of her life and less familiar in the shinobi arts than most of her classmates, she is undoubtedly a few years behind those of her own age-bracket and has been assigned to a lower year while she masters the fundamentals.

Build

Land:
Land of the Moon / Will of the Sky

Chakra Nature:
Lightning

Perks:
Genius

Drawbacks:
Old Wounds (Born Cripple)

Basic Techniques:
Chakra Flow 2
Espionage 2
Puppet Arts 2
Stealth 2
Subterfuge 2
Tool Arts 2
Unarmed Combat 2
Weapon Arts: Assassin/Hidden 2

Advanced Techniques:
Advanced Weapon Style: Bloody Mist 2
Concealment Arts: Audio/Visual 2
Sensory Arts: Audio/Visual 2

Equipment:
Shinobi Puppet (Prosthetic Body)

• Cultist Spike
• Flash Bombs
• Kunai
• Makibishi
• Senbon
• Shuriken
• Smoke Bombs
• Steel Wire

Fighting Style

Ayane enjoys and has shown talent for the arts of subtlety, stealth and misdirection. She prefers to approach enemies from stealth or disguise - failing either of these, she attempts to deceive her opponent into underestimating or misreading the situation. She covers her partially mechanical body in long-sleeved kimono, unassuming dresses and other non-combatant fashion while hiding her armoury of small, concealable weapons and tools within her limbs.

She is at a disadvantage in direct engagements, owing to her lack of powerful ninjutsu and taijutsu, as well as a preference for subtle tools of assassination rather than more effective weapons and armour seen on the battlefield. Still, she is not helpless and uses a mixture of steel wire, kunai, shuriken, senbon, smoke bombs, flash bombs and makibishi to try and keep her opponent off-balance while pushing with well-practiced but basic nintaijutsu or retreating into obscurity again.

In many ways, she epitomizes the fundamentals of the shinobi arts and excels in all of them save for genjutsu - a surprising deficiency in her abilities given her obvious mind for it. Her entire skillset is built to avoid fair fights and capitalize on unfair advantages, making her an excellent ambusher, assassin and disruptor, but leaving her very vulnerable when caught or pressured by more dedicated combatants.

Backstory

Despite modern advances in science and medicine, it is cruelly uncommon for children to be born deformed, malformed or afflicted in some manner. More spiritual communities might see this as a curse from a displeased spirit or the omen of an evil child, crippled before they can do any harm. More progressive villages speak of genetic flaws and developmental syndromes in the womb. Sometimes, both are correct. Regardless, most such children die very early - if not in their first few days, then in their first few years - it takes a combination of particularly understanding parents and access to the necessary resources to see one grow to maturity.

Ayane is one such blessed, afflicted child. Born without three of her limbs, and half of her face, she was a terrifying and shocking sight to behold to her close family. The Hasegawa are merchant-nobles of the Land of the Sky who's influence, power and wealth - while far from royalty - were nevertheless enough to hire medic-mystics and expert surgeons to save her frail and feeble body from the first few months of sickness. After stabilizing, her distraught but determined parents sought to overcome this barrier and give her a life worth living.

Unfortunately, nobility carries with it certain expectations. Fearing for their own image, as well as the safety of their daughter, Ayane's family hid her within their compound rather than letting her life a carefree childhood, appearing only at noble functions, gatherings, and events under various complex disguises of makeup, functionless prosthetics and extravagant fashion to maintain an air of normality. Unable to engage in most physical tasks common for nobility - from horse-riding and archery to ceremonial dance and competition - she was educated extremely early in bureaucratic, scientific and sociological matters to keep her busy.

Her thankfully sharp mind took in such lessons easily, but she found little passion in learning economics and politics. Instead, her interest was piqued in the arts, with her reserved demeanour transforming into a driven frenzy in her lessons of painting and sewing. Through insistence and no small amount of manipulation, the young girl would slowly amass a small group of tutors that would show her everything from the arts to smithing and tinkering. Her attempts at improving her purely decorative doll body saw small advancements, but no amount of artisanry could breach the gap between her body and the wooden limbs.

It was a rogue shinobi that would change her life forever. A master of the puppet arts had heard of the girl's plight and interest in the craft. He taught her the fundamentals of chakra flow and how he controlled his own, complex puppets. Adapting the techniques to her own artificial prosthetics, the girl would stumble her first steps in a few months, and be running by year's end. Intent on enjoying everything she had been missing, the girl would practice acrobatics, athletics and the arts of taijutsu for years under various other tutors, pushing her wooden limbs to their limit even as she improved on their design.

Rejecting her parent's protests, the girl disappeared from her clan's home not too long ago, seeking entrance to the Moon Academy in honour of the shinobi that had saved her from misery and with an intent to further hone her crafts. Though unfamiliar with the shinobi life, beyond the teachings of her private mentor, her life of tinkering, socializing and sneaking out of her gilded cage has given her a surprisingly potent skillset, securing her place in the Academy in a massively accelerated program.

Relationship Chart

Teachers

Dogen
Dogen-sensei is a wise and knowledgeable man who perhaps understands more than I could ever hope to. He is, however, a little overly serious - perhaps he knows something I don't, but it never hurts to smile, even if you don't mean it. I suppose I'd also lose a little character if I only interacted with books and other sages for decades.

He does not believe in my ability as a shinobi - he thinks I would do better at home. It is more than a little disheartening to hear something like that from a man like him, but it's not the first time someone has told me the same thing. If I can't ignore him, I'll have to prove him wrong.

Fox
Fox-sensei is my age and much, much better than me at almost everything. It's a little embarrassing and I'm jealous of her for that. She seems angry about a lot of things, maybe that's the kind of person you need to be to accomplish so much in so little time?

She doesn't really like any of us, but I think I've stood out from the others in her lessons just enough that she sees past my condition and just looks down on me for the same reason she does everyone else in the room. That is strangely comforting. As the most shinobi-like of our teachers, I think I have the most to learn from her.

Myorin
Myorin-sensei is a samurai, so she's much more familiar to me than the others. My family would talk with them often. She's a little different from most I have met - the other old men and young hotbloods my father entertained were very serious and showed their passion in a stern way, Myorin is more... Gentle is the wrong word.

I haven't really had a chance to fight many people yet. Not exactly a good start for a shinobi-in-training, but I've been practicing taijutsu for years. It's good to finally have a teacher that's willing to observe me and tell me where I'm doing it wrong.

Suzaku Tokawa
Suzaku is a strange fellow. A shinobi that doesn't seem all too grim, jaded or serious. It could of course all be an illusion, but if it is, I can't see past it. Despite that, he's obviously very skilled at what he does and the reason he seems to be teaching here is because he wants to rather than any sense of duty.

It's been more than a little difficult to approach him. I'm so used to people with ulterior motives or grand ambitions, but those are usually easier to figure out. Maybe he's just confident in himself, something I'm not exactly used to seeing..

Classmates

Aisuke Uzumaki
WiP

Iwao Iwaishi
WiP

Kisui Shōmi
WiP

Koda Mine
WiP

Kosshi
WiP

Kurayami
WiP

Leigan
WiP

Minoru Kanzaki
WiP

Momika
WiP

Mona Kyo
WiP

Nana Kozeni
WiP

Natsume Saimoto
WiP

Nekomaru Kagetora
WiP

Otanashi Hibiki
WiP

Sumio Fuchigami
WiP

Taiki Nakano
WiP