Visage

[Visage]

[atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=cellpadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][STYLE=background-image:url('http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq72/ShadowCelebi/ravenna.png'); opacity:0.8; width:350px; border-top:10px solid #4477aa; color:#660000; font-family:Georgia; font-size:26px; font-style:italic; text-align: right; line-height:50%; padding:10px;]Visage;;Human ---------------[/style]

[atrb=style, background-image:url('http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq72/ShadowCelebi/ravenna.png'); opacity:0.8; padding:20px;][STYLE=float:left; border: 5px solid #3F3F3F; width: 100px; height: 100px; vertical-align:center;][/style][atrb=style, width:201px; height:150px; overflow:auto; text-align:right;][STYLE=font-family:georgia;]Visage (Multiple aliases but no fixed name.) 16 Gender: ? Sexuality: ? Faction: Neutral Powers: N/A Occupation: Hired Assassin/Thief[/style]

[atrb=style, background-image:url('http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq72/ShadowCelebi/ravenna.png'); opacity:0.8; border-top:10px solid #4477aa; height:200px; width:350px; overflow:auto;][STYLE=font-family:georgia; font-size:16px;padding:10px;]personality The Assassin: Visage is a killer, a being of unknown gender even to itself, molded and formed into a tool that can be sought out by the highest bidder. As an assassin of the Weeping Star Tribe, Visage has been trained with only the rules of the clan to be in its mind at any given time during a mission. It will hunt any target to the ends of the world. It will complete any mission at any cost. It will never turn its blade against the Tribe. Trained from birth to be rational at all times when needed, to follow orders to the extreme, it is fair to call it an organic weapon built with the sole purpose of destruction. At a command Visage can slit the throats of infants in their cribs without batting an eyelid, or surrender its life to keep the Tribes benefactors hidden. This has been ingrained in the Assassins of the Weeping Star for centuries, they are cold, callous and calculating in all matters. Visage has abandoned all sense of personal desire to achieve perfection in the killing arts when a mission is in place, at the price of mercy and warmth and all traces of human compassion. A bringer of death is always alone, always suspicious and never without a weapon as death comes as a second nature to it. Through the years of hard training it is also capable of the most ruthless facadés, a poor street urchin, the bed-warmer of a magistrate, the war-torn orphan. Lying comes as easily as the truth, deceit and coercion are nothing more than parlor games. However such nature comes at a heavy price, the constant distrust of others leading to expecting a knife in its back at every turn, and the harshness of the world is all that much worse when constantly spent by yourself, all pale in comparison to being incapable of any action without an order to justify it. The Child: A child of the Weeping Star is still a child however, and as with all children forced into such brutality from birth, it has been known to regress at times. Never knowing love and warmth have caused Visage to become overtly spiteful of such things when displayed in others. Bitterness and anger, emotions which it has never been taught to control, overflow when not capable of fueling the rage into a tempered state on a mission. Even the strongest steel will break when under enough pressure, it is no different for this assassin. Without guidance Visage can be as self destructive as it can be deadly to its targets. Visage is also child-like in that it is highly irrational when bored, a direct conflict to its murderous tenacity on a job. It has a short attention span, a proneness to disastrous curiosity, and a ridiculous fear of thunder that leaves it often curled up under a table in the fetal position during storms. It is also highly confused by anything too complex, a lack of life experience outside fighting leaving it in a state of sheer bewilderment more often than not when faced with unexpected circumstances. The Girl: Visage knows nothing of gender or sexuality, it has never had the temptations of lust, it has never felt prideful in itself at its accomplishments or embarrassment at a failure, for a failure would mean an execution in its world. It does however harbor an unknown affinity with girlish things. Put down to having been taught how to act like a girl, Visage thinks nothing of it. But it can still be caught glancing at a mirror, eying itself in a dress and wondering "Am I good looking?" or find itself thinking that things are cute. It is one of the failures of its existence as a heartless killing machine, a flaw in its programming, that it sometimes finds itself enjoying the farce of playing the female role. Seducing a proud drunken warrior, fluttering its eyelids at passers-by and using feminine charm to get discounts at stalls, all are things in Visages repertoire, but it would never be able to admit such a thing. The Boy: Equally to its female perspective, Visage also is incapable of being entirely certain as to its male counterpart. It can swagger with the guile and naivety of a young prince, or play the ragged squire to perfection. Smiling at the ladies, wrestling in the mud and laughing whilst in its cups with its, albeit fake, friends. Visage has even been known to exert an attempt at physical attraction when in its male variety of persona's, groping and acting brash when needing to cause a scene often being its only understanding of such things. Visage will often tell itself that it possibly being male explains its affinity for weaponry and fighting, rather than accepting it is nothing more than a set of skills taught to an empty vessel. The Dream: Visage, as unfeeling and emotional and damn well contradictory as it can sometimes be, has only the one dream. Every-time it sleeps it will see it, every-time it goes on a mission it will remind itself of its impossibility, and every day of its life it would die excruciatingly to see it fulfilled. This is the dream to find the 'kissing knights', a herb known in the myth of the tribes obscure philosophy and religion. Since childhood it is the legends of the powers of the elixirs that can be made of the herb that has given Visage the strength and imaginative creativity required to survive. One day Visage hopes to find the herb itself and ascertain whether the legends are true or not. The Prayer: Visage is a highly devout believer of Wajua, an obscure, native religion to the isles from which the Weeping Star Tribe come. It is from the teachings of its trio of prophets, whose descendants are supposedly the founders of the Weeping Star, that the assassins of the tribe gain their lack of fear to die, their tenacity in combat, and their ability to do as they are told at all times. The teachings which are most important to Visage however follow the path of Zabak who reputedly slew the beast Tok, a basilisk that terrorized the isles for hundreds of years. The teachings of Zabak tell an assassin how to obey and fear only the wrath of the fallen enemy, for it is obvious that when a killer dies they will be at the mercy of their victims for all eternity. Among the three prophets Zabak is known as the romanticist between them, a proud and vengeful man who could kill even the gods if they angered him, who would climb mountains and strangle griffins to prove his love for fair maidens. Of course the sentiment of romance has been lost on someone like Visage, who is incapable of understanding such things in the most rudimentary of ways, but it has never stopped the bravery and charm of the prophet coming through to it in the stories. This devout nature however can often come back negatively on Visage, as a religious fervor can make it sometimes act over zealous without good reason. [/style]

[atrb=style, background-image:url('http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq72/ShadowCelebi/ravenna.png'); opacity:0.8; height:200px; width:350px; overflow:auto;][STYLE=font-family:georgia; font-size:16px;padding:10px;]appearance Physique: Visage stands at a slightly small five foot six, which is the right height for a female of its age, but makes for something of a slight male. With a wiry frame devoid of curves it is impossible to classify its gender through physical structure alone. It weighs sixty kilos, which is a healthy weight for its size, but is composed of purely muscle weight, with every ounce of fat having been burned from its form. When naked Visage appears skeletal in composition, with its bones being prominent, it however pulls off this look with grace and a lightness that makes it appear as though it is not malnourished at all, simply well trained. This is done through hundreds of hours learning how to move with intent, whether it be the sway of hips for being a female, moving from the shoulders as a male, or portraying a disability of some type. It has a pale complexion, long legs and thin arms, with thin pianist fingers and small feet hardened with callouses from years of training. Visage does not have much in the way of physical strength, but relies more on stamina and determination to not succumb to stronger foes. It has a delicate voice, though this is again something it has learned to manipulate somewhat, though it is by no means a commanding voice, somewhat timid and quiet, but capable of many different expressions if listened to carefully. Visage has been trained in the arts of killing by the Weeping Star Tribe, consisting of six styles in combat. These styles are split evenly between armed and unarmed combat, relying on technique to increase lethality. Though Visage knows all six styles, it is most formidable in the unarmed combat style known as Inam. Inam is the practice of a muay thai like striking style, using the knees and elbows to strike vital points, with a jujitsu like grappling style to disarm and pin opponents for the fatal blow. Other than Inam there is; Sonam, the art of using daggers in a reverse grip facing downwards to target key points on the opponent and deliver lethal blows. Jub, a capoeira style of combat using flexibility and agility to strike from awkward directions to block. Hania, a form of ranged combat using throwing weapons. Inua, like Inam using a jujitsu style grappling, but with the concept of using open palm strikes and sharpened nails to rip and push opponents, wounding them for a lengthy fight. And lastly is Fehn, an art similar to silat, composed of primarily using a curved blade like a kama and a whip or chain to control the opponents movements, though it is the style taught for using most weapons and makeshift weapons in combat. The downside to the many disciplines of the Weeping Stars fighting style is that there is a lot to learn and most is reckless on the users body. It also has a distinct lack of skills for combat outside the range of throwing weapons, meaning most fights must be taken up close and personal. Which has resulted in many scars over its body. Visage houses more of these scars than need counting, but not all of which are from battle. The largest battle born scar Visage boasts is a two foot, jagged beast from a halberd across its chest, though it is slightly obscured by other scars as well. Features: Visage is a pretty creature by common standards. Thin red lips, with matching eyes and hair, make for a piercing appearance that draws the attention of many people, which is not always a good thing for a trained killer. What it lacks in physical attributes it more than makes up for with elegant bone structure, strong lines of symmetry and hard-to-forget features. Its hair falls past its shoulders, with a choppy layered fringe that nicely frames its face. With a roman nose, small ears and strong yet thin chin and neck line, it is truly impossible to tell whether it is an effeminate boy or just a female without further observation. Apparel: Visage has only two sets of clothes that would be worn on a regular basis. The first of these is the battle dress of the assassin, a black cowl worn over leather leggings, vest, pauldrons, greaves and bracers, which in turn cover a light set of wool breeches and tunic. For combat footwear Visage will usually go barefoot, for stealth factor, but also wears sandals on occasion that tie to its greaves to stop them slipping off. As this outfit, minus the cowl, can often be worn when dressed as a man anyway the other outfit is a simple black dress for feminine appearances, this dress comes with matching shoes and even a ribbon for tying back its hair, though it is more likely to be used to garrote someone than anything else. Gear: Visage does not wear armor into combat, the Weeping Star teaches that death should never be denied, so if a blade pierces the flesh it was destined to do so. Instead it wears a battle cowl, with pockets and straps sewn in to hold the weapons of their fighting style. At most an assassin will carry two primary weapons, in Visages case a Kama and 8-link chain whip with a sharpened bludgeon on the end, as well as several throwing knives and a dagger. Visage is also not one to carry much in the way of provisions, never staying in one place for too long it has learned to sleep amongst nature, to lay snares and fish for food and live of the fat of the land in general. In an effort to always travel light it only carries a small duffel bag for its belongings [/style]

[atrb=style, background-image:url('http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq72/ShadowCelebi/ravenna.png'); opacity:0.8; height:150px; width:350px; overflow:auto;][STYLE=font-family:georgia; font-size:16px;padding:10px;]history Wajua and the Weeping Star: To tell the story of Visage you first have to tell the story of the Weeping Star. The Weeping Star is a Tribe 300 years old, twinned with the birth of two other clans, all of which are located within a stretch of small islands several hundred miles off the coast of the main continent. Their rise comes from the legends of the Wajua, which has led to inter-tribe strife and warring since their creation. The Wajua is a pantheon of deities which are sacred to the tribes and often demand tributes and sacrifices in compensation for the right to deliver death to whoever is deemed fit by the tribe leaders. The Pantheon of gods in the Wajua are not named individually, but instead given a title by their jobs and appearances. There is also no key deity in the pantheon of Wajua, as all gods are equals. There are three gods in the Wajua pantheon, and two goddesses, called the Shepard, the Soldier, the Singer, the Siren and the Shade. Each has a set of teachings which are taught through the tribes over the generations, though they have mostly been altered as time has passed to endorse hatred between them. The key part which lead to the creation of the tribes is the myths that the Singer and the Soldier were lovers who had created two sons, Tiga and Leon. The brothers were close friends until one day the Shade appeared before them, bitter from his advances towards the Singer being denied, and compelled them to see who was the better fighter. Taking after their father in terms of battle prowess much more than his brother, Leon struck a mortal blow to his sibling. When the Singer learned of her sons death she begged the Shade to bring him back to life, but he required that she birth him a son of his own in order to do so. In mourning for Tiga the Singer complied and gave birth to Quem, who was just as evil intent-ed as his father as Leon was strong as the Soldier, and then Tiga was reborn as a striped and fur clad beast with fangs sharp as dagger. Feeling cheated by the Shade she complained to her lover the Soldier, but he could not turn his blade against his brother the Shade, for that was an unpardonable sin. After it was known among the gods and their children that Quem had been raping mortal women and drinking the blood of infants to become stronger and stronger, they called for a champion to appear to slay the god. Zabak, Mobo and Lynge, the three prophets of the Wajua religion were the ones to rise to the occasions, slaying Quem and his army of demi-gods using weapons forged by the Soldier, tactics taught by the Shepard and skills to catch them off guard taught by the Siren. And when the battle was over and Quem's head was put upon Mobo's spear, the Singer told their story through song for a thousand nights of feasting. The birth of the Weeping Star comes from the myth that after having slain the demi-gods and the god Quem that Mobo, Zabak and Lynge settled themselves in the islands where the tribes now live, and took native wild women as their wives. Which in turn lead to the creation of the three clans. The Weeping Star are supposedly the descendants of Zabak, who had many other illustrious accolades to boast of. The Three clans have never agreed as to who is the rightful descendant of who, and maintain a feeble truce only upheld due to foreign strife approaching. It is the belief of the Weeping Star that Zabak made a deal with the Shade himself, that if he grant Zabak control over life and death and made him too a god, that he would allow the Shade to live, and who fearing his awesome wrath, agreed to the terms. A star is born: Visage was not born with a name, nor is any child of the Weeping Star. It was not born with love or appreciation of life, instead it was an affair steeped heavily in tradition, in the blood rites and ceremonies of the assassin people of their small island. The Weeping Star controlled three islands at the time, each having a strict population control in place, where only 50 people were ever allowed to exist at any one time within the community, excluding the professional assassins who did their leaders work on far off islands and the main continent. Instead of a name, they called it Infant, the title given to all newcomers to the tribe until they had been blooded, when they would be called a Child. Whist it may seem brutal the rites of blood in the clan are a serious thing, so no-one hesitated to slay its mother at its birth, driving two foot stakes into her in a pentagonal star pattern and bleeding her dry. After having been washed of its own blood they bathed the child in its mothers own crimson fluid, a baptism as its inheritance and welcome into the world. Stripped of maternal contact, Infant had little time to adjust to the world before training began for its duty to the tribe. By the time it was old enough to walk it would be taught, trained, hardened. Life was not a gift, but a means to serve. Infant did however have a father, a man who went by the name of Uzl, a man blooded some said up to a hundred times before he had reached the age of 20, he was not a professional assassin but a mercenary sell-sword and had seen conflicts both at sea and on land. Infant however had little to do with its father, instead it was given to a wet-nurse and a drill master named Rik, a sturdy man, alcoholic in nature, and brutal in method. Hence Infant became Child on its fifth birthday. Slaying another child in the grove dedicated to the temple of the Shepard. From then onwards it was daily routines, for every wrong step it would receive a beating. For every word spoken out of line it would receive another beating. For every original thought that did not involve a desire to kill it would receive a thrashing. And sometimes it was worth speaking out of line just to get a beating over a thrash, at least then it would be able to sit down at meal times without a cushion. As a Child in the Weeping Star you are taught five lessons. Firstly they teach you that you can trust no-one. With the strict population controls, and increasing birth rates since a peace came over the tribes, it became a routine thing for the children to be armed and told that they may kill each-other at any time. Those who killed a lot of others would be praised, then beaten again for being too proud. And those who were killed were burnt as tributes to the Soldier and the Singer. This lesson is given from the age of Seven upwards until you became a Young One, after being blooded ten times. Child was remarkably good at killing, scarily so in fact. After choking one peer in their sleep, feeding another to the beast of an adult in the tribe and cutting one from ear to ear, it became quickly expected it would reach Young One within its first few years. The second lesson you learn as a Child is that to survive you must obey. Often they would serve returning assassins, as attendants doing their bidding, washing them, feeding them, and always watching them in the hope to learn a new skill. Failure to obey a proved assassin in any way would lead to death, and not always instantaneously. Often was death a painful and slow experience in the Weeping Star, simply to prove that life is something to be respected, and not expected. The third lesson as a Child is that everything can kill, a knife is a pretty weapon if you have one, but a rock does just as well if they are not expecting it. Child had been blooded its sixth time using a drum stick by forcing it down its victims throat until it choked to death. And the seventh came from using a spoons handle to stab through an eye socket into the brain. To prove this sentiment it is tradition in the Weeping Star that if a child has not been blooded ten times before the age of ten that they be taken to the summit of a mountain, and be left with other children their age until only one is left alive. Luckily Child never had to face that torment. The fourth lesson in the Weeping Star is to never show mercy. As the islands also follow the traditions of giving beasts to people at their coming of age, it is important to utilize them as a tool for their trade. Subsequently they are taught the vital points on animals early, by being pitted against them in combat. Child slew its first bear at the age of nine, with a piece of bone sharpened into a point lodged in its windpipe. Many fell at that point of their training, not thinking to finish off a wounded animal that then struck out at them for a fatal blow. The final lesson as a Child in the tribe is possibly the hardest, it is also the moment where the professional assassins are chosen from the survivors of the training. To be able to kill another, you must first kill yourself. It came upon Child's eleventh birthday, having been blooded a good fifteen times, it faced the challenge to abandon all personality and claims to its individual existence. For most students this was the loss of gender, not that they removed genitalia, but it was ghastly enough. Males and females alike would have their chests cut and burned, to remove the breasts of a female, and mask a males origin in the minds of anyone who might know the tribes traditions. They would also be abused sexually by a random member of the tribe, in a manner that made enough of a mental scar for them to lose the desire of such things. Only once the Child in them had died, could they become a Young One. The first eclipse: In the Weeping Star missions are handed out by level of experience, but that does not stop the Forum from being entirely packed on most days. The Forum is a great building on the main island the tribe controls in the shape of a pentagonal star, the symbol of the clan, with the five annexed wings dedicated each to a separate type of mission where groups and individuals would meet to discuss and plan the most ingenious manners to bring death to hell for the highest bidder the tribe could find. The main meeting room sits the elders council, who appoint the missions to appropriate members of the clan, however it is not uncommon for missions to be posted up so that the assassins not currently tasked with a job may request one instead. This is the case for all in the class of Young One as well, as the council will not decide for them when they are ready. Instead it falls to the trainer and the disciple to journey to the Forum, request an appropriate mission, and then complete it before the Elders will even contemplate taking them on for regular assignments. Visage had never been as emotionally hollow as when it received its first mission. After a three day hike in the mountains, having combated against ruthless wild animals, prayed at the temples of the head deities of Wajua, and traveled the rough autumn waters between its home island where it had trained and the main island where the strongest fighters dwelt, to then come and prostrate itself before the council in order to be given a mission that had been selected by Rik, its training master and substitute-father. At the age of twelve, having been blooded some thirty times in preparation for the event, which entailed having hunted and killed traitors, criminals or having been selected the honor of defending tribe justice in a trial by combat, Visage would find itself at the pinnacle of its deadly training. At this point it would take several missions, all to test whether it had higher aptitude for a certain type of job, and all would be difficult. Rik had even left the decision of the first job to the student itself, albeit a choice between several missions he had pooled together to opt from. And here is where all the training would culminate and test itself, if it chose a mission too easy the council may see it as weakness, too difficult and it would see you dead and dishonored for the incompetence. Yet Visage had a plan to make its name in the tribe, not for pride or honor or something petty like reward, but because it was all that it was capable of doing. Used to the methods used to control the population levels of the tribe, Visage had a plan whereby the elders would not lose out if they granted its request of a difficult mission, and if it succeeded, could potentially have a deadly tactician on their hands. It had opted for a daring strategy they could very easily be throw out by the council for its pure audacity, a grand scale assault on the professionals so to speak my completing missions from different disciplines simultaneously. It picked four missions, claimed to be able to do them all in one night, and claimed that all could be done without the aid of a single assassin who had finished their training as a Child; if Visage were allowed to pick the team it took personally. Whether through guile or senility, the missions were granted, and Visage began the journey home, with Rik snarling about his wasted effort the whole way. The first true kill, that against a target rather than a fellow trainee, came naturally to Visage, now a Young One by name; the lowest disciple of the killing arts. With four groups it traveled to the main continent, firstly via a skip-jack known to collect oysters around the islands, before transferring to canoes used to transport them to the main trading lines of the continent. They secretly boarded a merchant hopper barge carrying wares to the neutral cities of Terran so as not to seem allied to any one side in the wars that engulfed the land. Once upon dry land the plan could begin in full. Visage knew every member of the team it had formed, each was a whelp compared to the professionals used by the Weeping Star, but each was chosen based entirely upon their strengths and weaknesses, so even Rik had to accept that the plan was solid when he watched them depart. Ten of them left the islands, and if all went according to plan ten would return, though losses had been accounted for in its execution. Visage would take the first mission alone, none of them had beasts at that age, and children are often viewed as being less dangerous than grown adults with beasts to protect them. Its plan was to slip its way into the court of a wealthy tradesman by the name of Debar, whose head was being bought by a group of survivors from a village he had endorsed the enslavement of, and subsequently bought and sold the slaves to make a small fortune. The reason he was to die didn't exactly matter, but it did help in forming the method of his demise. Visage, adopting the name Junina for the job, would act as a bed-warmer, something Debar was notorious to having be the duty of girls between the age of eleven and thirteen, then would simply have the other servers be incapable of being summoned to him, so that it might open his throat when alone in his bedchambers. After a week of learning the weaknesses of her fellow bed slaves, and the guards, it was time for action. All went according to plan, and the girl killed to take its place when everyone came searching played her part perfectly. At the same time three other targets were taken out, all high value targets to the Weeping Star. The first a temple leader to an obscure religion was requested by a priest of the religion so that he might take the place of the current man in charge who would be shamed into exile. It was performed by two girls who Visage commanded to set a fire to the altar, but a controlled fire that would not destroy the whole building, and then coerce drunks into the temple and have them cause a massacre amongst themselves. The second target was to defend the honor of a politician who was at the center of a scandal for liking boys and being unfaithful to his wife. The main accuser was to be staged as having an intimate moment with the politicians wife, so that he could turn it around to appear the victim. This Visage had tasked to two boys. And lastly was the gate of a small towns defenses, which a group of bandits wanted to raid. The remaining six members of the team were all given this task, to infiltrate their militia, sabotage their defenses, and flee whilst they were plundered and slaughtered. That night Visage bought its name in the Weeping Star with the blood of only three of its team, all who partook in the mission against the town being besieged by brigands, and even then it was more because they themselves hadn't taken into account how brutal the towns fighters could be, the soldiers in training called Child, had taken out four targets with only a week of subterfuge, and in one night fulfilled all mission objectives. It is also how it gained its name. Kneeling at the foot of the dais the council members sat upon, staring at them with cold and merciless eyes that made its face impossible to read. Shooting Stars: As part of the councils intent to train Visage to be a master of multiple forms of assassination, rather than specializing in one or two areas, they decided to assign it to a remote location to train with masters of the arts. Jobei, the man known as being "God-Slain" for his acts during the warring period of the clans, became Visage's primary teacher in the arts of delivering death. Jobei had come to the clan forty years before Visage was even born, a vagrant swordsman with no allegiances who technically did not come to the tribe, but washed up on their beaches with three arrows in his back and enough burns to keep the healers busy for months. Ironically for a master assassin, Jobei was also one of the most warm hearted individuals to have ever graced the islands. Technically not part of the Weeping Star due to his manner of leaving for long periods of time and his not being born there, he never became properly accustomed to the tribes ways, and had only ever taken six students since being acknowledged as a master. The first thing Jobei had Visage do was take a pilgrimage to the mainland where it would claim its beast at the paw-print, a shadow hare called Benn. Jobei never allowed beasts to step foot on his part of the mountain, so the actual training of the creature was left to Rik, but Visage was not exactly left much spare time outside of training to concern itself with a partner adopted only for the rights of tradition. Jobei had three students at the time, including Visage, two boys, Nero, a user of a technique designed by Jobei himself called "God Fist Karate" which used absolutely no weapons but could crush internal organs without ever so much as drawing blood on a target. And Rydell, who was younger than Visage, and was a user of poisons and weapons with next to no hand-to-hand combat skill. Jobei had been selected as the trainer for Visage because of his talent to focus solely on one part of a student and perfect it, which had served the Weeping Star several times. Jobei trained Visage for three years, concreting in his entire premise of assassination, building foundations of the skills it had already learned, then slamming on prefabricated techniques he had spent his life developing to make a monster out of the youngster. Nero, Rydell and Visage trained together most of the time, God Fist Karate totally annihilating every move that could be thrown at it, the weapons skill of Rydell often being a major source of trouble to try and contend with as singular mistakes would mean lasting injuries. But the tenacious ability to plan flawless scenarios into its head gave Visage more than enough chances to bite back at them. Of course, the three could not bond or build a proper awareness of each-other because of the lack of individuality the Weeping Star program into them, but for a man like Jobei who had not grown up in such a way this was viewed as a weakness. So one night he gathered the three in a private sitting room. Dawn hides the star: Dashing through the forest Visage found itself trapped entirely on two sides, the other opening out into an open field that would mean certain death. It bit down on its lip, tasting blood and cooling its head as it tried to strategise a plan that could let it escape without too much risk. With the dense forest it would be impossible to maintain a decent speed, and the winter had stripped the leaves that would have allowed such excellent hiding places up amongst the trees. The field was three hundred meters long, with a good mile in width, a very short run for Visage, but with an opponent determined to skewer you and the skill to do it, it was just too much of a risk. The fourth side was where it had just come from, where he would be coming from very soon. Yet when he arrived he found nothing, no footprints to say where it had fled to in the snow, the field empty, the trees still as the snowflakes lightly dusted them in the cold but windless air. He waited, he watched, and then he fell. Visage had remembered the fifth side, underneath, hiding under a white blanket between a rock and allowing the snow to coat its flesh it had remained silent until the time to spring was apparent. "Point!" Came the bellowing voice of Jobei through the trees, only to stand up in the middle of the field with Nero beside him. How long they had been there was a complete mystery. Nero had graduated from being a simple student a year after Visage had began training with them, now he was more of a teacher himself to them than a peer. But he would always be a friend. Jobei had seen to it that the three of them were as brothers in arms, that their loyalty to one another went further than any blood relation could. It had taken a long time with Rydell and Visage, but as soon as it became apparent that Rydell was possibly the best cook in the Weeping Star, Visage opened up to him. Cooking skill went a long way during the four months Jobei assigned them to live alone in the mountains without his help. He had called it a method to opening their hearts, though it was questionable at best as to how he intended them being stranded in the wild would help. Now the four were a family, a dysfunctional one, but a family none-the-less. Jobei never became soft on them, constantly sending them on missions that had little chance of survival, only to end up with a childish grin and tears of pride in his eyes when they returned. For three years the damage done by the Weeping Star to Visage was eaten away slowly, it was scabbed over and would leave deep scars, but Jobei had seen to make sure that his children were safe from their abusive techniques of making humans into death dealing robots. When Jobei died, he adopted the three officially, left them his place in the mountains, and left each a letter with his instructions. Which is how the whole mess started. Starlight Drive Nero was the strongest. Nero was the smartest. Nero was almost a master. Nero died. He followed Jobei's last order perfectly, which was simply to tell the masters brother of his demise. The brother had followed Nero back to the mountain to pray to the shrine of his memory, then drawn a small Sica, the death dealing weapon, and slashed Nero across the gut just beneath the kidney line. He had blood pissing from his stomach because of what? A flesh wound? Yes, the cut was thin and shallow, but also dealt from a blade forged with the poisons of several deadly breed of reptile in it. He died within hours, his beast followed, and Rydell went insane watching the whole affair. The reasons for the brothers insane actions were never clear, Visage always presumed the brother hated Jobei, was jealous of him for some reason. Either that or that it wasn't the brother at all and that Nero had found the wrong person. Visage didn't escape unscathed either, an emotional wound was left in the wake of losing two people close to it, with the only other person who mattered to it left as nothing more than a shell of itself. Nero had lasted surprisingly long for someone so badly poisoned, long enough to give advice on what to do with the mountain home, long enough to feel the true pain of dying, which Visage had always presumed to not be as bad as the pain felt by those left behind but in those hours sorely became unsure of. Rydell snapped like a twig, which left Visage only one choice really. It took Rydell down to the Weeping Star, where their healers could attempt to retrieve his sanity for a price. Visage enrolled as an assassin for them again, itself emotionally broken and empty again. The healers of the Weeping Star proved themselves to be irrefutably redundant in their techniques. Their one idea was that as Rydell had lost something which he considered a major part of his soul, that they would try to shock him back into sanity by destroying his beast, effectively removing another piece of him in an attempt to counter what was already lost. It did not work. Rydell wound up reverting back to his childhood, which was already a disturbed thing. All of this Visage only knew through correspondents from the tribe. It had missions to complete, jobs to take on. Now more than ever it was impossible to escape the grasp of the Weeping Star, if it failed them they would have no reason to keep Rydell, as worthless as he was to them and as important as he was to Visage. Any disobedience could be met with his head on a pike. Dusk reveals the star: Visage had one main mission, to take down the head of an organization called 'Hand'. Hand had developed as an assassination clan very much like the Weeping Star, except that they were by no means as obscurely located, they were far less picky about their targets, and they had no discrimination about who they trained to work for them. Split into five cells, called the Fingers, Knuckles, Fist, Palm and Nail, each lead by a head member of the Hand, they were a group that not only worked amongst the small islands, but also the main land. With the ideology that whilst the humans and demons nobility were fighting over who ruled the lands, that the Hand would eventually usurp and control the shadows. Every-time they were used for a mission they arbitrarily gained blackmail that would solidify them as a power to be reckoned with. Hence Visage had been sent to deal with them before they became a serious issue. Crushed by the weight of its own losses, Visage was not very effective at the start of the mission. Taking several wounds in its battles with the small-time members of the organization, losing leads and slipping further away from the teachings of Jobei as time went by. Eventually though, it came across an overwhelming opponent that changed the entire fabric of Visages consciousness. Not one to use its beast in combat properly, Visage had little it could do against a seriously powerful demon. The martial arts it had learned were useless against muscles like solid steel, and its weapons shattered when claws slashed against them. What truly brought on the demise of Visage though was not its physical strength but its mystical powers from the netherealm. It broke down the mental structure of its opponent, assimilated everything it had ever known and fabricated entirely new memories within it, deleting anything that brought up conjecture with the new information. This brought on the issues with gender, emotions and its own mental instability. Resulted in the split perspectives that Visage sees the world through, not quite split personalities as much as a mass of confusion. [/style]

[atrb=style, background-image:url('http://i435.photobucket.com/albums/qq72/ShadowCelebi/ravenna.png'); opacity:0.8; width:350px; overflow:auto; border-bottom: 10px solid #4477aa; border-top: 10px solid #4477aa;][STYLE=font-family:georgia; font-size:16px;padding:10px;]ooc NAME: Grgur CHARACTERS: Nope~ FACECLAIM: Cardfight Vanguard - Ren Suzugamori Visage I FOUND YOU THROUGH: Karmic forces [/style]

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