OOC - Scorched Application

[crosstobear]

Out of Character Information

player name: Rose
player journal: fidelitas
playing here: Renji Abarai and Shinpachi Nagakura
where did you find us? Second star to the right and straight on till morning.
are you 16 years of age or older?: By more than a few years

In Character Information

character name: Kenshin Himura
Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin
Timeline: End of chapter 250 and his fight with Enishi, right before he falls into Kaoru’s arms
character's age: 28

powers, skills, pets and equipment: Kenshin is a very skilled swordsman and one of the most powerful characters in the series. He was trained in, and has mastered, the Hiten Mitsurugi-ryuu style, which enables the user to defeat multiple opponents using speed and agility (this is referred to as “godspeed” considering the user moves faster than a normal human). The style also implements battoujutsu, an extremely quick drawing and sheathing of the sword in attacks.

One of the unique abilities to be learned from this style, however, is being able to quickly read a fight and tell what an opponent will do so the user can avoid attacks and then end it quickly. Against a more experienced fighter, Kenshin has proven that he can figure out an opponent’s technique in as little as two or three times before ending the fight. This varies depending on the other person’s power, but Kenshin still catches on quickly.

Kenshin has learned and developed many techniques (twelve in total, as well as a few variations), both using normal sword skills and battoujutsu alike. They tend to be acrobatic, including high jumps and spins, coupled with great speed and power. It’s all very physics-defying and shounen.

However, because Hiten Mitsurugi-ryuu is so powerful and demanding on the human body, most practitioners have developed impressive muscles to make up for it. Kenshin, on the other hand, is small and lithe, with no impressive musculature to compensate. Therefore, after many years using the style as a hitokiri and rurouni, it’s finally starting to catch up with him. From the canon point I’m taking him, Kenshin has already begun to suspect his fighting days are near an end, though he doesn’t know how much longer he has (not long after he learns that in about five years he won’t be able to lift a sword if he keeps fighting).

His only weapon is the sakabatou, or a reverse blade. It looks just like a normal katana except for the sharpened blade being, you guessed it, on the inside curve, facing Kenshin himself. It’s a weapon that reflects Kenshin’s view on not killing anymore, as using the sakabatou in combat is more of a hindrance than a help because of the blade’s placement. This sakabatou is actually the second he acquires in the series. Both were made by the same swordsmith, but the second one is stronger than the first, which was broken in a fight.

canon history: Here!

personality: On the outside, Kenshin is a kind and humble man, normally wearing a smile and always putting the needs of others before his own. Even the way he speaks is extremely humbling to himself; he never uses “I,” but rather the Japanese pronoun “sessha” that roughly translates to “this one,” thus referring to himself indirectly, and others he speaks to are given the honorific of “-dono,” expressing, again, his lowly being compared to theirs. He doesn’t look for trouble, but if he sees people in a bind, he will not hesitate to interfere, trying to solve the problem with calm words and non-violent means. On this surface, coupled with his tendency to act clumsy and almost unawares, Kenshin gives off a harmless vibe, making most people underestimate him and leave him alone. The most dangerous thing about him is his good-natured snark and getting beat up by Kaoru for it. Therefore, it’s very easy for him to get through life under the radar, just as he likes it.

This is the rurouni, the wanderer side of him that most people will only ever see.

Of course, Kenshin isn’t just a wanderer, if the fact that he, a commoner, wears a sword in an age where they have been outlawed is any hint. Like everyone else, he has at least a few secrets in his past. During the Bakumatsu period ten years before, he was a highly-skilled assassin, the Hitokiri Battousai, who took the lives of over a hundred people. This guilt of having murdered hangs over his head (and the presence of the cross-shaped scar on his face is a constant physical reminder) and he has spent the last ten years after the war ended upholding his personal vow never to kill again. This is a difficult vow to uphold perfectly, considering he knows there are people out there whom he has wronged, whether they are friends or family of those he killed, or someone he only wounded who is then looking for revenge. Kenshin accepts any of these fights, although he doesn’t let himself sit back and be killed, despite putting him at a disadvantage. He doesn’t, however, refrain from literally knocking sense into people if he must, but his goal in defeating an opponent is to change their mind and help them figure out a better path for their life, sometimes convincing them to never pick up a sword again. When Kenshin fights, gone is the silly, harmless man, replaced by a serious fighter who does not hesitate to raise his voice or lay a verbal smackdown, as well as a restrained physical one. He is incredibly smart and very observant, definitely not someone you want to cross.

Sometimes, however, he comes across an opponent who really gives him a difficult fight, and the Battousai part of him reawakens, thirsty for killing. This tends to happen when someone innocent is threatened, whether or not they are dear to Kenshin, or even when he is just goaded over and over to kill. Despite his incredible discipline, Kenshin isn’t perfect and this awakening can occur. His greatest fear is that he will one day revert back to this killer and no one will be able to bring him back. However, he has grown to trust himself and his friends at his canon point, so while the fear is still there, he doesn’t feel as alone or powerless as he used to.

Kenshin knows he is a walking weapon, which is one reason he has spent ten years wandering the country. Up until he met Kaoru in Tokyo, he never stayed in one place for too long. He attracts trouble because of his past and so he never wants to get anyone else involved in his problems. For this reason, he used to never let anyone get close to him, instead pushing them away and closing himself off. He was content with being a nobody and drifting from town to town, as long as it meant that no one would get hurt. He believed that he didn’t deserve to be happy like everyone else did.

But then he met Kaoru Kamiya. And Kaoru is the first person Kenshin has met in ten years who doesn’t care that he has a dark past because she knows that everyone has something to hide. Although Kenshin and Kaoru have known each other for less than a year, she has become the most important person to him, the one he wants to protect above all others. In a way, she is his greatest strength, but also his greatest weakness. In times when he’s been away from the dojo or fighting and begins to lose faith in himself, he can think of her and how she wants him to come back, to come “home.” That acceptance gives him strength and hope. But then if anyone knows how important she is to him, anything done to her can turn him into the Battousai or even worse. The latter happened when her death was faked. Kenshin hated himself for being unable to protect her, for breaking his vow to keep people from dying. He fell into a horribly deep despair. In that state, nothing could bring him out, not even the promise of revenge, of justified killing. In the end it was just because someone needed help that he became himself again. Of course, everyone learned Kaoru was alive and Kenshin was ready to go and save the day with everyone else.

Yes, everyone else, meaning Kaoru isn’t the only person Kenshin has learned to accept into his heart and befriend. Although he and Hajime Saitou are more enemies who begrudgingly work together to keep Japan from burning or being taken over by madmen, but there you go. It’s a hard life.

Where Kenshin is in his life right now, things are definitely looking up, even if he’s accepted that the rest of his life is going to be full of suffering in order to atone for his past. To him, Kaoru and the dojo are home, a word and a feeling he hasn’t used or felt in ten years. He’s learned to trust his other friends and rely on them to help him instead of taking the world onto his shoulders alone. This change didn’t happen overnight and it isn’t complete yet, but Kenshin isn’t lost anymore. And with that knowledge, he can appreciate life even more and how he lives in a world where others can live in peace and children are the future.

why do you feel this character would be appropriate to the setting? Kenshin has been a wanderer for ten years, so he is able to adapt to wherever he ends up really quickly, even if he tends to not stay in one place for too long (before he met Kaoru, of course). Also, he’s a very capable fighter and good at making peace, so chances are he can deal with most anything Anatole throws at him.

Writing Samples

Network Post Sample:

[Video]

[The video flickers on, showing a bruised and bloodied face, a large cross-shaped scar visible on the man’s left cheek. A moment passes and then his eyes widen, as if noticing that he has turned on the Forge.]

Hm?

[His eyes begin to flick back and forth, trying to figure out what just happened. A few moments later, he frowns.]

Is this...some new means of communication? It must be an invention from the West.

[He lifts his free hand, wincing a little, and brushes some of his filthy red hair out of his eyes, though some bangs fall back into place immediately afterward.]

This will sound crazy, but is anyone able to hear this? Any information pertaining to this location would be greatly appreciated. And...there is need of a doctor, as well.

[Although he is in obvious pain, the man smiles, though it’s not directed straight at the camera, and clumsily tries to turn off the Forge, finally managing it after a couple failed attempts.

It might have been accidental.]

Third Person Sample: Slowly, consciousness crept in, images and thoughts blinking through Kenshin’s mind and behind the darkness of his eyelids. The sound of waves breaking upon the beach. Kaoru’s face. Swords clashing. Sand stinging in open wounds.

Kaoru’s face, smiling, her arms open for him...

Kenshin’s lips curled up into a smile of his own and his eyes opened slowly, fighting the heaviness of sleep. A few moments later they focused, realizing belatedly that he looked upon a ceiling. Which...didn’t match up with what he last remembered happening. Had he lost consciousness after the fight? It wouldn’t surprise him. He had driven himself hard and even he needed rest like any other man. Or had he dreamt the entire encounter with Enishi? Was Kaoru-dono still in the other man’s custody? But that didn’t make sense. He knew he traveled with the others to that island. He remembered it all more clearly the longer he lay awake. He needed to get up. Being in a location he didn’t recognize, especially after not knowing how he had gotten there, always put Kenshin on edge.

He pushed himself up from the bed. Or rather, he tried, but his right shoulder, twice-wounded, screamed in pain as he moved his arm. And then the pain came flooding over him in the blink of an eye, all the wounds he had suffered in his fight with Enishi reminding him of their existence. Kenshin gasped and lay still for a moment, trying to calm himself and accept the pain. His shoulder burned from the slash and gunshot, his forearm from another run-in with the blade, and his gut from the stab that somehow managed to miss any vital spots.

He should have known that the beginning of the rest of his life, after discovering how to atone for his past crimes, would be heralded with pain. It was only fitting.

But that didn’t help him now. Kenshin needed medical attention; he wasn’t stubborn enough to deny such a fact, and information about where he was. Once again, he tried to push himself up, this time gritting his teeth as his left arm did all the work. The sheets below him were soiled with blood, sweat, and sand.

Once he was up and Kenshin had taken a few moments to breathe through the pain (and marvel at the fact that his feet hung off the side of the bed), he looked around the room and saw that his sakabatou rested in a corner nearby. His eyes fell closed in relief. The sword had been his constant companion during his ten years spent as a wanderer, as well as a means to protect him and, now, others. The weapon felt like a part of his own body, much like anyone else would find having two arms completely natural.

Of course, as good as it was to have the blade nearby, it didn’t lessen Kenshin’s worry. He wasn’t at Kaoru’s dojo, or anywhere he recognized, nor could he hear anyone nearby. He was alone and that was wrong.

Now came the time to figure out how to right his situation.

Anything else? BUT YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO CUUUUUT ME OOOOOOFF