Mizu

❄️ Basic medical skills
❄️ Hand-to-hand combat
❄️ Observation
❄️ Parkour
❄️ Survival skills
❄️ Swimming
❄️ Swordsmithing
❄️ Tracking
❄️ Weapons combat: katana, naginata primarily

Role Qualities/Attributes: Mizu's Myth attributes will be based upon the onryō, a Japanese vengeful spirit and accusation, insult, and label Mizu has been called. Specifically, the imagery will be based on that from the Kabuki show in Blue Eye Samurai itself and her makeup from the visual parallels.

Mizu will get golden horns sprouting from the top of her head, sharp golden teeth, and red coloration around her eyes. Her face and clothes will at the "worst" most Myth moments whiten like the onryō, and her mouth will split to cross her entire face. Further, the more she shoves her emotions aside to be emotionless, the greater the odds these emotions will release themselves in small localized weather phenomena onryō are known to make (e.g., lightning, fire). These attributes will come and go, but the horns and red coloration will be most common.

Her natural skills will be enhanced for threat detection, reflexes, speed, resistance to poisons, innovation, luck, and cleverness. However, these will not be to such a degree it stands out as abnormal to her, at least at the start. Mizu will see in the dark when her onryō traits are more pronounced. As she grows as a character, she may be able to see these grow (if she embraces Myth-hood) or decrease (if she turns away from it).
Role Reasoning: Mizu considers herself a demon due to her Hafu status and further embraces the path of revenge, committing terrible deeds along the way to see it through. Though Master Eiji raised the idea of revenge as art, she still views herself as a terrible person whose demon may "win out." Mizu is also highly individually focused, not caring about society as a whole because it hasn't cared about her. Mizu is arrogant, emotionally distant, inconsiderate, and chooses actions that benefit her quest.

Mizu will see the role of Myth as confirming the worst aspects about herself, without seeing the good in them. She came to Folkmore as part of her revenge quest, and she will focus on that task to her satisfaction. If she believes she has gained all she can, she will try to leave. Those are her plans. Just like Ringo was a typhoon in her life, however, relationships with others in Folkmore may push her off that path.

❄️ What was the most traumatic experience your character endured? How did this change them?

Being born. While the most traumatic aspect of Mizu's life is the daily experience of being half-white half-Japanese in seventeenth century Japan, that trauma is crystallized most clearly in the end of her marriage. While Mizu married against her instincts—as it cut off her freedom from living as a man and put her quest for revenge on hold—she developed a solid loving relationship. Her 'mother' made her act more feminine, more wifely, and when Mikio saw her skill with weaponry, her passion, and her ferocity—the parts of her she'd hidden, the parts he said he wanted to see—he rejected her. He called her a monster, sold the horse she'd spent a year taming that he'd promised never to sell because it was hers, and turned away when he saw men came to kill her. Her 'mother' on the other hand cared more about her access to opium, to feed her addiction, than anything else.

While both denied selling her out, in the end it didn't matter. They both only accepted parts of her and would never let her be herself. They would both always be one disappointment or money shortage away from betraying her. They both had power over her when she lived as a woman and a wife, and they would not relinquish it. The lesson Mizu learned is that love and happiness are for other people. The people that are supposed to care for each other will never truly care for her.

Mizu returned full heartedly to her path of revenge. Her heart was closed off to Ringo, Taigen, and Akemi in various ways and disappointed them all. What's the point in doing otherwise when they can never love a demon anyway?

❄️ What is the most important and defining relationship(s) in your character's life and why?

Mizu's relationship with Master Eiji, her swordfather, mentor, and the man who raised her defines Mizu more than anything else. They never talked about him taking Mizu in. He only started wishing~ for things aloud and began training Mizu to his high standards as a master craftsman. Not only how to forge steel but the spiritual side. Purity of the metal, the maker, the one to wield it. Mizu learned patience, dedication, and acceptance. When Mizu confessed to the blind artisan that she was Hafu, he reminded Mizu that the best steel requires impurities, and the right impurity can be a great strength. When they reunited, after she nearly died fighting Fowler, Mizu opened up to him about considering herself a demon. Eiji replied that he didn't raise Mizu to be a demon. He moved from calling Mizu a foolish young man for going on her revenge quest to proposing that revenge can be an art, one that can defeat the demon inside. He meets her where she sees herself, using her own language to teach her that she is a person, an artisan, more than a demon.

His teachings and profession even informs her quest for revenge. Helping Eiji, Mizu witnessed and learned more styles of sword fighting than most swordsmen usually ever see. It allowed her to understand the strengths and weaknesses of them to apply when they serve her. It cultivated her devotion, dedication, and ability to commit fully to her path. Only with Eiji's advice and support does Mizu manage to reforge the steel of her broken blade.

❄️ What would your character sacrifice to get what they want or to reach their potential? What have they sacrificed already?

Mizu wants revenge on all four white men and potential fathers who made her life what it is (imagine, if you will, Mamma Mia! if instead it were a power ballad full of bloodshed and fighting sequences). Her potential is something she's only started considering, something that teeters on a sword's edge: a demon or an artisan. Both thirst for revenge. It's only the nature of how that revenge goes that determines which she'll become.

Mizu has already sacrificed a safe, established, well enough compensated life as a sword maker's apprentice (and eventual master of the craft) in the only home that has ever shown her love and affection. Her quest for revenge has rejected this possibility time and again, even as Master Eiji offers it to her. She's further sacrificed the only mother she's known, her husband, and the newfound relationships she's made with Ringo, Taigen, and Akemi.

Beyond people, however, Mizu also sacrifices morals and ethics. She ignores the fates of others around her all the time: women, the poor, the shogun. From top to bottom, not her concern. Mizu fights and kills, permanently disables, or beats the shit out of anyone who she needs to harm to reach her targets. The worst example is when she accepts the job to assassinate an abused young woman in exchange for information to enter Fowler's castle. Though Madame Kaji promised Kinuyo would understand and accept death, she didn't. She wanted to live. Mizu killed her anyway.

Only after that does Mizu consider whether her revenge can be an art, but she still believes when push comes to shove she'd make the same decisions again. Even if that makes her a demon.

❄️ What is a time where your character failed drastically at something and how did it impact them, what did they do about it?

At the start of her quest, Mizu tried to bribe her way to information about illegal traders peddling goods from Europe to reach white men. It went nearly as badly as it could. Mizu is stabbed and nearly bleeds to death. While her 'mother' distracts her from her path for over a year, Mizu still learns from the experience. People involved in illegal trade won't respond to bribes about its infrastructure. That's a fishy line of questioning, and they're particularly invested in keeping anyone from learning too much about it. That would threaten their business far more than anything a bribe could make up for.

Therefore, when dealing with people directly involved in some manner, it's best to get straight to violence or to anticipate violence. Whether that's with a flesh trader or a prestigious dojo, violence gets what Mizu wants. Cutting off fingers gets Heiji Shindo's name. Beating up all the students at the dojo gets her time face to face with the master of the dojo.

Mizu will still use other means when they present themselves or when they're necessary, but honest to goodness direct violence straight ahead gets a lot of the job done.