Mitsuteru Chihoshi

Origin

City of Ogres, Land of Demons
+Will of Faith

Age

16

Rank

D (+25)

Perks

Deep Reserves (+5)
Pain to Pleasure (+5)

Drawbacks

Old Wounds (+7)
Rage [Rapturous Frenzy] (+10)
Instability (+3 - Fluff)
Bad Habit [Self-Mortification] (Fluff)

Chakra Natures

Earth
Water (-4)
Yang (-3)

Basic

Stealth
Utility Jutsu+ (-2)
Chakra Flow
Claw Creation
Body Flicker

Advanced

Sensory Arts [Chakra, Hearing]++ (-9)
Curse Arts (-3)
Barrier Arts (-3)

Hidden

Activation Fist (-3)
Elemental Turret (-3)
Canopy Method Barrier (-3)
Elemental Golem (-3)

Special

Dark Element (-8)

Kekkei Genkai

Wood Release (-10)

Biography

Born from the blood of the Chihoshi Shrine, Mitsuteru is a serene, severe warrior-monk hailing from the mysterious Land of Demons. For generations, the City of Ogres has been known for upholding traditional values of spiritualism that stand at odds with the philosophy of the Hidden Villages. For that reason, the Land of Demons has never claimed a shinobi clan of their own. As of just a few years ago, however, that is no longer the case.

The Chihoshi Shrine is simultaneously an organized household of noble warriors, similar to a shinobi clan, and a secluded religious sect whose history dates back hundreds of centuries, but remains shrouded in sacred mysteries and cursed memoirs. It is said that the Chihoshi “clan” are the cursed descendants of a demon – a man who had sought to kill the most humans in a single day hundreds of years ago, in the name of a “wicked design.” Those who were born of the man’s atrocities, from women he had forced himself upon, were given the choice of total exile or an acceptance of an “unpayable debt to all life” as inheritors of his crimes, both material and spiritual, and his profane gift: an imperfect, artificial recreation of the sacred Wood Release, “unwillingly stolen” from the confines of the Hidden Villages.

The Chihoshi are known for their severe attachment to the concept of guilt, and their fascination with pain, extreme asceticism and self-mortification. It is their belief that pain, particularly self-inflicted pain, is a source of focus and clarity. While not all members of the Shrine are trained as ninjas are, those who opt for training are faced with a ritual to “desolate all falsehoods.”

To receive the “higher mysteries” of the Chihoshi Shrine, that training which shinobi receive, an aspirant must obey a single requirement: the removal of one’s eyes. Such as it is, that all Chihoshi monks are marked by their distinct blindfolds, hiding hollow eye sockets.

They see themselves as eternally guilty and deserving of suffering, but also see themselves as entitled to their role as “sin-eaters,” sparing those more pious and innocent than them from the indignity of enduring the wicked and sinful by weaponizing punishment. In their mind, “God need not stray from the innocent whilst the guilty eat each other.” To that end, the Chihoshi Shrine embodies their role as ominous inquisitors, inflicting unending torment upon the wicked.

With the coming of the Chunin Exams, the Chihoshi Shrine seeks to diversify their skillset, “returning” the gift their cursed progenitor had stolen from the Hidden Leaf Village so long ago. As such, they’ve made a blunt entrance into the Shinobi World on behalf of the Land of Demons, offering a young candidate for shinobi training as a way to improve relations - and further their own holy agenda. In a way, Mitsuteru was born as an offering.

Personality

Mitsuteru bears a calm, almost pleasant demeanor, befitting a shrine priest. He rarely loses his composure outside of combat scenarios and speaks with an ethereal, indifferent grace, never directly insulting or speaking ill of anyone, especially the dead. In a way, he only focuses on the positive aspects of people, both in his enemies and allies, and what they “add” to the world in response to the world taking things from them. His reverence for the spiritual side of chakra and ninjutsu is endless, and he finds deep interest in learning the limits of other’s abilities and, more important to him, what they endured to achieve those abilities.

Mitsuteru has a deep love for pain. Pain unto himself, and pain unto others, even his allies and friends. It goes beyond simple sado-masochism and into the realm of philosophical obsession. To be a friend of Mitsuteru is to demonstrate an ability to endure large amounts of torment and emerge from it as an evolved person. He doesn’t inflict this torment on anyone who does not ask for it – whether literally asking him (which he is more than happy to oblige), or by performing acts that he deems as deserving of retribution. Impeding him or his shrine’s ambitions is deserving of retribution.

Beneath the surface, Mitsuteru is an embodiment of the Chihoshi ideal. Despite being only a teenager, his flesh tells the story of his faith, far more than most shrine aspirants. Generations of guilt have created a child that knows no hesitation, no doubt about what must be done or what he is. In a way, he does not see a future where his bloodline’s debt is repaid. He is more content to live as an extension of holy will, and nothing more, working towards no goal other than the punishment of the wicked.

It is a selfish urge. Mitsuteru makes a point to make no expression when using his techniques on humans. He forces himself to appear conflicted, or even ashamed, at his own capacity for hurting people. It is a matter of appearances.

But there is no conflict at all. He wants to smile, every time.

Combat Style

Mitsuteru is a ninjutsu practitioner, specializing in crowd control, area denial, and target capturing. As a worshiper of pain, the majority of his jutsus revolve around inflicting grievous, crippling injuries on targets over a long range and limiting their mobility and physical strengths. Rarely do Mitsuteru’s targets ever actually see him - he avoids direct engagements when possible, preferring to set up the seeds of his Briars of Sin over a wide area covered by his Canopy Method Barrier and rely on stealth and misdirection to elude enemies whilst allowing his autonomous creations – the Kodama and Jobokku – to draw their focus and punish their advances.

When engaged directly, Mitsuteru still remains focused on elusion, casting his Dark Wood jutsu’s that are wide, expansive, and indirect, such as bursting “blooms” of Briars of Sin covering large swathes of an arena. His focus lies in denying the enemy the space to move, rather than targeting them directly, as exposure to the Briars of Sin is enough to severely debilitate them. He can create sharp claws of bone from his hands that, combined with his unarmed training and ability to invoke the Activation Fist as a last resort, allows him to further debilitate his enemies and encourage blood loss and internal damage when possible.

Chihoshi Shrine Jutsu (W.I.P.)

Dark Wood Fundamentals: Briars of Sin

Less of a specific technique and more an application of “Dark Wood Release” that is common throughout other Chihoshi techniques. By infusing one’s own chakra with natural energy that has been “purified” through cursed energy, a practitioner can create, shape, and manipulate thin, whip-like briar vines tinged with a characteristic blood-red hue. These vines are flexible, durable, and strong, capable of wrapping around a living creature and, if commanded, tightening into a coil and rendering the creature into a desiccated paste between its thorns.

Layered, hook-shaped thorns mark the vine’s length, useful for hemorrhaging soft flesh and making hasty removal a dangerous and painful prospect. More than their physical shape, the Briars of Sin are tinged with a curse-infused venom that inhibits the body’s ability to staunch blood loss and induces the rupturing of red blood cells at an exponential rate so long as a briar’s thorns remain embedded in a victim. Within minutes, without the aid of chakra, the victim will have lost too much stamina from blood loss.

Most techniques revolving around the Briars of Sin focus on getting the vines to pierce into the target’s body, forcing a choice between enduring the pain of removal or the dangers of allowing Sin to fester within them.

Dark Wood Release: Penitent Thorn Cage

A fundamental cursed technique wherein the practitioner slices their abdomen upon invocation, creating a massive, spiral "cage" of the Briars of Sin around themselves in a quick instance, skewering any approaching opponents and inflicting them with the Briars of Sin. This cage is malleable, expanding outwards or lashing out at nearby opponents if they do not retreat immediately. While seemingly suicidal to trap oneself in such a cage, it is meant to punish aggression and, as all monks know, creating a cage around oneself is far easier than creating a cage around someone else.

Dark Wood Release: Sleeping Sinner's Reprisal

A fundamental offensive technique that allows the practitioner to "grow" sharpened stakes of dark wood in the soil beneath an opponent's feet (or, if capable, in the bark of a tree they are standing by) and then, with a subtle hand motion after the fact, prompt them to launch outwards and impale the target in a surprise attack. The hand seals of this technique are subtle and executed quickly, alongside a small sacrifice of blood, preferably from the tip of one's nose: the curse can be cast during even the slightest lapse in the opponent's attention, condemning them to a painful reprisal once the monk springs the trap.

Cursed Technique: The First Blood Star

One of Mitsuteru's most powerful techniques, the first in a series of techniques referred to as "nights of the Blood Star," representing the full usage of cursed energy within the Chihoshi philosophy. All of these techniques necessitate the death of one's target in a sacrificial fashion: an unwilling but necessary act of martyrdom, in the Chihoshi's own words. Essentially, the First Blood Star is a variation of the Activation Fist technique, wherein the practitioner creates a swirling red orb of pure cursed energy within their palm and then embeds it within the opponent.

The Chihoshi variation reduces the blunt impact of the orb and instead replaces it with a blood curse. The victim's flesh has become the soil for the birth of a new tree, grown from the roots of Sin. Upon being struck with the orb, the victim will begin to cultivate Briars of Sin from their blood slowly. It is an indescribable agony: the feeling of a young oak tree struggling to break free of one's body, of thorned roots wrapping around their bones, digging through their musculature. Typically, the gestation occurs over the course of several hours. Once the opponent succumbs to their own agony, then the agony will end in a spectacular fashion. From a pile of viscera and gore, a young tree is born, growing from the nutrients of the victim's remains.

In the past, Chihoshi monks inflicted this technique upon sleeping targets, vanishing before the effects set in. The victim dies in such a fashion without ever knowing why: only assuming it to be a punishment from the gods.

Dark Wood Release: Wooden Demon Creation: Kodama

After performing the hand seals, the practitioner creates a thin, wiry humanoid creature out of dark, gnarled wood, known as a Kodama. Kodama are elemental golems, resembling long-limbed wooden humans with simple, hollow faces and hands ending in sharp, hooked claws wrapped in Briars of Sin. Compared to other elemental golems, Kodama are intentionally created with a limited investment of chakra and cursed energy, so that even an entry-level practitioner can create multiple Kodama without burning through their reserves.

Kodama are, individually, not as strong as most golems, being about as durable as a small tree and as fast as a young shinobi. Even a genin, if they saw one coming, could deal with a solitary Kodama, especially if they know Fire Release. Imbued with cursed energy, however, Kodama are capable of slightly more autonomy than other golems. When engaging an enemy as a group, Kodama will actively attempt to outflank and surround their prey, and if left idle for too long, they will begin to wander aimlessly, attacking whatever living creature crosses their path – this can include their creator, if the creator is distracted enough.

Dark Wood Release: Wooden Demon: Jubboku

After performing the hand signs, the practitioner thrusts their palm into soil. From the soil, a small tree with an eye-like symbol carved in its center begins to rapidly grow. This tree is known as a Jubboku, or a “Blood Tree.” Jubboku are elemental turrets resembling black, leafless trees carved with ritualistic symbols, though they can be disguised as the most common species of tree in the surrounding area where they are created with an extra expenditure of chakra.

Jubboku are highly versatile and fully autonomous, being shaped to different sizes or purposes depending on the practitioner's needs, though larger Jubboku require much more chakra to create. Mitsu prefers smaller Jubboku that target a wide radius around the place where they are planted. When triggered by an enemy, these Jubboku begin to grow Briars of Sin through their roots, which burrow beneath the target's field of vision and rapidly burst out of the ground, impaling them.

By Mitsu's design, his Jubboku attacks are indirect and obscured, forcing constant movement and panic in solitary targets.