akitsu masa; application info; medius_terra

[frogpup]

Player Info:
Name: aaron
Personal LJ: frogginator (rarely used)
IM Contact: xXbananarchyXx
Other Characters: N/A

Character Info:
Full Name: Masanosuke Akitsu (Western Order); shortened to Masa by...most people
Fandom: House of Five Leaves (anime)
Age: unspecified, likely very early 20s
Species: human
Point In Canon: end of episode 12, the final episode of the series
Gender: male
Background: There is no reliable link to a history for House of Five Leaves, as it's a smaller fandom. I have written out a history, though. Sorry for the long read!

Masa was raised in a noble family, the oldest of three siblings, with one younger brother and the youngest a sister. Not much is said about his upbringing, other than that he and his brother were both trained as and called upon to be samurai, and that his younger brother has a certain amount of debt that could cause the family to fall if it isn't paid off. The series is relatively historically accurate, so his position as a samurai implies that he was well-educated and has trained in the way of the sword since childhood - the equivalent of being raised in a modern upper-middle-class home while being groomed for a particular career.

Masa obtained a position for a retainer to the shogun as a samurai through connections with his uncle, who held a position of power there. However, due to his anxiety and some other unspecified circumstances, he was asked to leave, resulting in him becoming a ronin, or unemployed samurai. He migrated to Edo, the capital of Japan and its largest city - the ancestor of modern-day Tokyo - in order to earn money to send home and to try to correct his "personality problem," his anxiety. He found a small room to rent and started to take on jobs as a bodyguard, though he tended to be fired or let go quite frequently due to most of his employers finding him unreliable due to his anxiety. This left him in poverty and with the very real danger of not having money to send home, let alone to buy food with, hanging over his head.

Things changed when he ran into a pale-haired man with light eyes in the street. Intimidated by the sharp look he got from this man, Masa fled to a shrine, where he was approached by this same man with a skewer of dumplings. The man, who introduced himself as Yaichi, had a job proposition for Masa, and hired him on as a bodyguard to attend a nighttime meeting with him. During this meeting, Masa discovered that Yaichi was part of a group called the Five Leaves who regularly conducted kidnappings of children or heads of retainer families to the shogun in order to make money. Worrying and guilty about participating in something like a kidnapping that went against his morals, Masa was paid for his participation, but refrained from using the money until he could figure out what it was he wanted to do.

At this point, Yaichi started to pressure Masa to join the Five Leaves. Masa was consistently fed at Yaichi's request by Ume, another member of the group who owned a bar, and became interested in the various members of the Five Leaves after going with Ume to the countryside with (unbeknownst to Masa until it was too late) one of their kidnapping victims. Masa here met the Elder, Soji, a close companion of Ume's, and his previous boss in a group of bandits. Though Masa was unwilling at first to join the group because of his moral objection to kidnaping, he kept returning to the group because of an interest in them - Yaichi, in particular.

Masa was gradually taken into the Five Leaves through a series of involvements in their plots, generally masterminded by Yaichi and done without Masa knowing. For example, Yaichi had him placed as a bodyguard in the home of one of their prospective kidnapping victims, where Masa made friends with the young boy who was kidnapped, and took the fall for allowing him to be kidnapped (Masa was taken out with some drugged food along with the boy). After this incident, Masa took on a position as a bodyguard with the brothel in which Yaichi lived, which he held for only a short time before he fell ill with "Edo sickness" - a historical term for beriberi, or thiamine deficiency from living off a diet of white rice and pickles. Masa was taken out to Soji's place in the countryside to recover, and while he was there, he started to untangle some of the history of the Five Leaves, in an attempt to understand where all the members were coming from, though Yaichi was still the primary target of his interest. It was also during the time before he fell ill that Masa made friends with the third son of a retainer to the shogun, Yagi, who he accompanied to graves of Yagi's dead friends - a boy named Seinoshin who was the son of a neighbour, and his servant, Yaichi.

While living with Soji for a month, Masa found out why Ume was a member of Five Leaves - he needed money to help out a friend from his bandit days who was being blackmailed by a former friend - and protected Soji when he was attacked by a previous member of his gang. After Yaichi was tricked into coming to visit him (Ume told Yaichi that Masa was desperately ill and considering going back to his hometown), Soji recognized him, and this is when Masa realized that it was likely Yaichi had previously been in a gang and that Soji could probably tell him more about Yaichi if Yaichi refused to open up.

Upon returning to Edo after his recovery, Masa returned to his position at the brothel, and continued to help out the Five Leaves as much as he could. He was surprised by a visit from his little sister Sachi, who was running away from home after his younger brother, to whom Masa had given headship of the family in his absence, had arranged a marriage for her that she didn't agree with. She had come to Edo hoping that Masa would tell Bun (their brother) to call off the arrangements, since his word as oldest sibling could not be ignored (though she ignores it on a frequent basis). During this time, he also had a run-in with a fellow ronin who challenged him to a public duel, and discovered that his anxiety problems hadn't gone anywhere when he had a panic attack and was forced to flee the scene. It also caused him to start being concerned about his skills as a swordsman, and Yagi agreed to help him with training at his place.

While Sachi was visiting, another member of the Five Leaves, Matsu, got into trouble when a man he was deeply indebted to lost some wooden tags very important for business to a competitor. When Matsu went to try to take the tags back, he was caught by the competitor and held hostage there in an attempt to subdue the man he was indebted to - who thought of him very fondly. Masa, acting on his own initiative, asked Yagi for help in getting a position as a bodyguard with the competitor, and after working his way in, was able to rescue Matsu from his captivity, while Yagi, a member of the police force, managed to return the wooden tags with no harm done.

After a chance meeting between Yagi and Yaichi, though, Yaichi told Masa to be careful around Yagi, and to make sure that Yagi didn't see his true strength. Uncertain of why this was the case, Masa started to pay closer attention to Yagi and Yaichi both, hoping to find out more information. After this meeting, Yaichi started behaving strangely, related to, as Masa found out from Soji, the release of several members of a particular gang of bandits that Yaichi had been part of. The tension of this situation caused Yaichi to be more evasive, more on guard, and more paranoid - avoiding contact and clamming up about his history. Eventually, this behaviour frustrated Masa, who wanted to know more about Yaichi and to know how to protect him.

Eventually, Masa sat with Yaichi, told him a bit about his past, and where he came from - how he became a samurai, and why he left, as well as a bit of his motivation - and then told him that he was going to go speak to Soji to find out more about Yaichi's history. This prompted Yaichi to hit him with his heavy hardwood smoking tray, right across the face, a blow which Masa took without flinching before getting up to go visit Soji. During his visit, Masa found out that Yaichi had been a member of a gang that rivalled Soji's, and that he'd killed a fellow member of the gang to atone for a slight against Soji. He also found out from a run-in with a previous member of the gang Yaichi had been part of, that Yaichi had betrayed that gang he was part of. Also, through his own observations, overheard conversations, and other cues, he had worked out that Yaichi had been kidnapped before, and that he was connected to Yagi - piecing it together, Masa realized that Yaichi was, in fact, Yagi's young friend Seinoshin, who had been kidnapped and was believed dead, and that he had the name of Yaichi after his servant.

The situation reached a head in the last episode, when Yaichi was taken out to drink by Yagi, became very drunk, and had a run-in with his former gang mate, who tried to attack him and told him that his servant hadn't betrayed him as he'd always believed - Yaichi responded by killing the man. Masa was alerted by Matsu that Yaichi hadn't come home, and so Masa went out looking for the man, discovering him just after sunrise at the gravesite of his servant. Masa knelt beside him, and Yaichi cried into his lap for a time, before leaving. Later, Masa found him again at the same shrine they'd first spoken in, sitting by the same statue. Masa knelt in front of Yaichi and offered him a skewer of dumplings - which Yaichi accepted, eating directly from Masa's hand.

It is at this point that Masa would be leaving canon.

Personality: Masa is a very timid young man, compassionate and with a heart of gold. He can be naive and gullible at times, but always says what he thinks, a trait that can upset some people. On top of this, though he's a strong fighter as a ronin, he's also got what is likely a case of an anxiety disorder.

Masa is, at the heart of him, a good person. He's soft-hearted, compassionate, and caring. A considerate person, he goes out of his way to address people politely (generally, he refers to people with the Japanese equivalent of "Lord" or "Lady"). He's generally likeable, taking well to most people he runs into and who express interest in him - he returns this willingly and genuinely shows interest in the thoughts and opinions of others, listening and taking them into consideration. This trait, however, occasionally edges into territory where he is overly concerned and becomes nosy, so it is a fine line for him. He also has a lot of concern for other people, being more than willing to put himself out to help others. In his canon, in fact, he becomes a little reckless on a few occasions in order to protect people he sees as friends. He's a very protective person, being willing to step up to the plate and use his samurai fighting skills to ensure that people he cares about won't be hurt. His fighting skills are also top-notch, he's unsurpassed with the sword in his hometown, and anyone who is familiar with his fighting or sees him fight generally says that he's extremely strong. Finally, Masa also has a good sense of pride - he doesn't want to lower himself to standards he doesn't see fit, and won't sacrifice his own dignity until there's no other choice.

Masa is shy, timid, easily intimidated by people he doesn't know well who have composure and a certain coolness about them, and he can allow himself to be gullible at times, in order to fit in. Masa wishes he had the sort of mental stability and natural charisma that some of his friends have, and because of this desire to emulate them, he can go against his better judgement in an attempt to remain close to them. Masa tends to be naturally anxious and socially awkward - despite his natural timidity and politeness, he actually has a habit of saying exactly what he thinks regardless of how socially acceptable it may be. Often, he will say out loud things that everyone is just thinking, or things better left unsaid, and he is often told that he's crude or offensive because of it. Whether this is his natural inclination, or poor socialization during his upbringing (the latter is entirely possible, since his sister behaves in the same way), it contributes to a social awkwardness that causes Masa to be self-effacing and anxious with others. Additionally, despite his strength with the sword, Masa is physically a bit clumsy, often bumping into things when distracted, tripping over his own feet, and generally seeming a bit spaced out.

Masa is, physically, a bit delicate - that is, while his body is quite strong, he seems to have a weak constitution. He suffers from "Edo disease" through part of the series, which is a thiamine deficiency, and it takes him over a month to recover. Aside from this, he is also generally low-energy, and has evidenced a difficulty doing manual labour. These things can be traced to his poor diet due to poverty, and are likely exacerbated by stress due to his anxiety.

Speaking of which, Masa is a very, very anxious person, and the series strongly hints that he likely has some sort of anxiety disorder. When put in situations where he stands out too much, has to perform in front of a group, or has to face off with someone more cool and charismatic than himself, he shows the classic signs of having a panic attack and physically runs from the source of his anxiety. This often leaves him looking like a coward - and while he isn't a coward, he does have a near-crippling anxiety about performance and his own social failures. In the past, and throughout the series, this anxiety has caused him no end of grief, ranging from humiliation in front of peers to frequent loss of jobs due to employers thinking he's unreliable. This is something he's come to Edo in order to try to correct, and he refers to it as his bad personality.

Throughout the series, though Masa does grow as a person, and learns to assert himself with people he cares for, he still suffers these same failings and has not overcome them. They are, at the end of the day, part of who he is.

What kind of things will they be bringing with them? Masa won't have much on him when he arrives. He'll be carrying several ryo - a unit of antique Japanese money. He will also be carrying his complement of samurai swords - katana (long sword), wakizashi (short sword), and tanto (dagger).

Abilities: Masa is canonically a skilled dual-wielding samurai. He's known to be extremely strong with the use of his katana, moves quickly (when in good health) and is naturally talented at swordsmanship. However, this is severely limited by his performance anxiety and even without that, is not superhuman in any way.

Third Person Sample:

He hadn't been sleeping, not that he remembered. No, he'd been crouching in the dregs of the snow left from the night before, his tabi damp and a smile on his face while Yaichi had eaten from his skewer of dango.

Masa could vaguely remember having woken up to a fire and a child, a little girl, before falling asleep again, but the impression was faint enough that it could have been a dream. Why he was dreaming, though, was the part he didn't understand. Had he fallen ill again, passed out in the street and been brought somewhere while he slept? Pushing his elbows against the surface beneath him, he hunched his shoulders against a chill and rubbed a long-fingered hand against his face, knuckle digging into the soft skin of his eyelid. Loose strands of hair tickled against his face, and he took a few steadying breaths.

Everything was unfamiliar, the buildings were strange. Lowering his hand, he felt at his side, instinctively sliding fingertips over the hilts of his katana and wakizashi before his fingers curled around the hilt of his katana, protectively. Self-protectively, perhaps.

Large black eyes flicked back and forth as he took in his surroundings, sliding to the edge of the mattress. Somehow, he'd been too distracted with the strange shapes of the room around him that he'd missed the angle at which he'd been looking at them. Expecting the floor to be barely an inch below where he sat like it was with the futons he was accustomed to, he moved expecting that - he placed his foot directly in the air and crumpled to the floor nearly a foot below.

Masa lay still for a few long moments, his mouth set in a sardonic frown, eyes staring blankly at a foreign ceiling, and then he sighed, pushing himself up yet again. His heart was beating hard, and it had nothing to do with the fall - a bed that sat that far above the ground and looked permanent rather than something one rolled up to store for the day really proved that he was in a strange place.

It was almost impossible to wrap his head around. And he was getting a little afraid.

First Person Sample:

[a video post engages, with the video tilted off at a weird angle, showing a slice of the ceiling and a bedpost, and then shifting dizzily to skim along the wall, and a bit of dark blue fabric before settling on the face of a young Japanese man, his hair tied up with strands hanging around his face. his eyes are almost impossibly wide and black, and he just stares at the device for a bit.

it becomes very quickly apparent that he only accessed the video option by pushing a lot of buttons without even really knowing what buttons do. he gulps slightly, and the video jerks as he shakes the device slightly]

It's like people talking.

[his head tilts a bit to the side, and he sighs a little, glancing around the room again, his mouth set in a deep frown, a furrow forming between his brows]

It's strange...ah...

H-hello?

[his finger comes up to tap at the screen, obscuring the camera for a moment, then falling back while he stares at the device with an expression of deep confusion - though there is, perhaps, just a hint of hope]