FIRST CHARACTER!!
Name: Tora Miyamoto “Tigerblade”
Age: 36
Bounty: none
Species: Human
Occupation: Swordsman (fighter)
Allegiance: Pirate, recently left the marines
Home Village/Ocean: South Blue
Appearance: Somewhat buff but not overly so, very fit. Approximately 6 feet tall. Generally wearing a skin tight black shirt with an open white jacket with a high collar and blue marine style pants and simple sandals. His dress resembles that of a marine but he does not bear the mark of justice on his back but rather the characters for truth 真実. As per traditional samurai, he has a long Japanese style sword and a short sword (wakizashi) affixed to his left waist. The sword blades are black in color but the sheaths are a deep red color. His hair is very short and jet black and he wears small black square rim sunglasses over his eyes. Has a horizontal scar across the front of his neck. He has a strong brow and always remains clean shaven, his nose is very sharp and defined and his lips always in straight line coinciding with his solemn demeanor.
History: Born the son of a Master of a traditional kendo dojo. Since a very young age he was trained as a swordsman and became and expert in Nitouryuu with the use of a wakizashi. His childhood was often challenging and much was expected of him, his father was in constant disapproval of him despite his skill with the sword. He constantly trained whether under his father or on his own and spent most of his time in solitude. So while he was constantly surpassing his peers in swordplay he never had any friends but his swords. As he grew into his teenage years he began looking towards the marines as a source for a new challenge and possibly more praise than he received from his father.
Upon leaving the dojo he took the opportunity to fuse his own blades from a refined volcanic rock giving his swords a blackened color. He then joined the marines as a recruit in south blue, he was placed under command of the local commanding officer. After a few battles with pirates, where he slew a great deal more enemies than his comrades, he was promoted to petty officer for his superior swordsmanship. His commanding officer recognized his promised and allowed him to work mostly independently capturing pirates and keeping the law. He traveled one-man craft and often accompanied his comrades for missions.
During this time he was dispatched to deal with a disturbance on a local island. Upon arriving he encountered a crew of pirates, the Purple Hat pirates, with a total bounty of 2,000,000 (Captain at 750,000; first mate at 500,000; three crewmates at 250,000). The crew was new to the area and had not heard of Tigerblade and his reputation as an enactor of justice. As such their captain, a devil fruit user of the toge toge no mi (spike spike), foolishly offered to take him on in a duel so they could pillage the island freely. TigerBlade took his shotouryu iai stance (small sword drawing technique) and as the captain rushed in at him he used his Rising Dragon technique dealing a nearly fatal blow and incapacitating him. Upon this occurrence the first mate immediately jumped into action to defend his captains life and his crew's pride. TigerBlade exchanged blows with this man for some time and eventually defeated him and then made quick work of the remaining two significant members throwing the crew into disarray causing them to flee.
At this point his commanding officer realized his potential and he was promoted to ensign and moved to the Grand line. In this position he gained a lot of combat experience fighting with the growing influx of pirates into the Grand Line. He was assigned to work under one of the Vice-Admirals. Nothing too eventful happened during this period of his career and he still spent most of his time alone. He also used this time to train his body greatly and attain new strength. It was during this stretch of a couple years when he mastered Soru and Geppou the 2 of the rokushiki he deemed most useful for his use in combat. His commanding officer had watched him grow and decided he needed to be placed in a leadership role since his combat skills were high enough and he wasn't forming bonds with his comrades.The Vice-Admiral put him up for promotion to Captain to be able to lead his own ship. The higher-ups however were skeptical since he hadn't seen much combat experience during his time on the Grand Line. They decided to test his skills by having him and a current Captain duel with bokken, wooden practice swords. The duel lasted a long time, but TigerBlade had been slowly gaining an advantage due to his superior physical skills and he finally finished the duel with the use of his soru.
Now he finally had a crew of his own to command. His crew however didn't respect him entirely at first since his reputation had not grown and they feared he would not be able to handle himself properly. On one occasion traveling through the grand line they encountered a pirate ship of the Golden Starr pirates a formidable crew with their captain obtaining a bounty of 6,000,000 beli. They exchanged cannon fire until they were close enough to board the pirates. However, after boarding they were being pushed back greatly and all seemed lost. But then TigerBlade jumped on board and slayed a couple of underling pirates without trouble and approached the captain, Harold Starr. Starr realizing his most formidable opponent was approaching prepared himself as he was sure he would have no trouble. TigerBlade drew his sword and attempted a straight on slash which Starr was able to avoid and launched a counter attack slashing TigerBlade shallow across his throat and hitting him in the stomach with a powerful punch pushing him back a yard or two. At this point TigerBlade began slowly approaching the captain again and then suddenly disappeared from Starr's sight. He had jumped above him with his geppou and used his geppou again to close the distance between them using his Skyward Vengeance iai technique to deliver the final blow. His slash he received from this battle left a distinctive scar.
At this point his crew began to respect him greatly and he lead them through the grand line tracking down pirates. One day they arrived at an uncharted island they landed and began explore eventually they found an encampment of people who were dying of sickness TigerBlade was distressed by this and contacted the headquarters from his denden mushi requesting a doctor and medicine be sent over immediately to help these people. He was told however that there were no ships to spare and there was nothing they could do to help if they were on that island. Perplexed by this message TigerBlade and his crew rushed back to headquarters and broke into the infirmary to take the necessary medicine and rushed back to the island but upon arriving, the journey having taken about a week, the encampment had been all but wiped out by the disease TigerBlade cursed headquarters for not sending aid.
When he returned at this time to headquarters he was harshly reprimanded being told he can't act on his own like that and he must follow orders. TigerBlade furious at this screamed that there were people dying and at this point he threw off his jacket bearing the mark of justice and the marines and stormed out of headquarters taking a shipp of his own to go and sailed out to sea in hopes of finding someone who sympathized with him and would be willing to work to enact true justice upon the world.
Personality: Very solemn and independent doesn’t rely on support from others but has relatively well developed leadership skills. He keeps to himself and doesn't always like company, however, he is quite reasonable in an argument and isn't afraid to express his opinions. He doesn't like to be given orders and he does what he feels is right. He can also have a good time when the situation calls for it and doesn't mind relaxing but prefers to be training and working with his hands.
Ship: unnamed one man craft
Ship Flag: currently flying no flag but his personal flag is that of a black tree with bare branches and intertwining roots against a white circle on a black background.
Devil Fruit: no devil fruit
type: n/a
effect: n/a
Special Abilities: Mostly uses iai techniques from various stances but when in prolonged combat nitouryuu (two sword style) carrying the short sword in the left handwith a reverse grip and the long sword in the right hand
Learned Techniques (Keep it 1-25): Soru, Geppou, Single sword iai Rising Dragon (an upward sword drawing technique with reverse grip, left hand, wakizashi), iai tiger leap (using soru draws the blade while passing by a foe to slice and sheath the sword after passing the foe), twin fangs (a forward stabbing move with both swords), Skyward Vengeance (Using geppou jumps above his foe then quickly back down drawing his long sword for a downward slash)
Weapons/Items: a Japanese style sword and a short sword (wakizashi)
Goals: to enact true justice throughout the world.[/i]
Wed Feb 22, 2012 2:35 pm