Tokuko

Tokuko is Ketsurui Samurai Fukei¹⁾ charged with serving Yamatai Star Empire. She is a player character controlled by raz.

Tokuko (徳子)
Species:	Nekovalkyrja NH-33 (Eihei)
Gender:
Age:	19 (born YE 20)
Height:	170cm (5'6“)
Weight:	50kg (110 lbs)
Organization:	Ketsurui Clan
Occupation:	Ketsurui Samurai Fukei
Rank:	Samurai
Current Placement:	Empress' Palace guard contingent, occasional investigations, samurai sensei

• Height: 170cm (5'6”)
• Mass: 50kg (110 lbs)
• Measurements: 31B-23-33

Build and Skin Color: Tokuko is a sturdy, muscular warrior with rich, sun-kissed golden skin. She is tall for a Nekovalkyrja; at 170cm, Tokuko stands as tall as the tallest standard production Neko can be manufactured.

Eyes and Facial Features: Big, bright red eyes dominate Tokuko's face, which sits framed by her mess of thick black hair. Her features are unmistakably Yamataian: perfect symmetry, almond-shaped eyes and delicate, beautiful lines make it obvious Tokuko is an engineered supersoldier. The samurai's face is a little round, but just enough to give her a naturally relaxed, calm demeanor. Her eyebrows are large and full, but are by no means masculine looking. She's got a wide smile, too, if you can catch her not wearing the usual “businesslike-half-frown” she tries to maintain.

Ears: Tokuko has large, black-furred Nekovalkyrjan ears. They droop downward instead of pointing up like most of her kind and almost get lost in her hair, often being mistaken for another unruly cowlick. She may wear her ears like this by choice, as no diagnostic scans have ever shown anomalous physical or genetic results.

Hair Color and Style: Her thick, untamed black hair falls to just above the shoulder. When her mane gets too long, Tokuko simply cuts it down with a tanto. While not unkempt — no samurai would even dream of being seen disheveled — this hairstyle definitely reinforces her reputation as a gruff, hands-on field samurai, far removed from duties involving Planet Yamatai or Ketsurui princesses.

Distinguishing Features: If Nekovalkyrja could scar, Tokuko would bear many marks of her service to Yamatai. She bears two genetic tattoos. The first is an old-style manufacture proof: a 1 inch square on the right of her lower back engraved with her model number, name, and the words “Ketsurui Zaibatsu.” Tokuko's second, more apparent mark is a 2 inch thick black bar that emerges from her hairline and extends over her right brow until ending at the edge of her eyelid. Both traditional Neko tattoos have been retained through body upgrades since the samurai's creation.

Personality: Tokuko is a determined, cunning Nekovalkyrja who, like all of her samurai sisters, is ever-mindful of her duty as a protector of the Ketsurui Clan and the Yamatai Star Empire. Flowing from that sense of purpose, her drive to dispense Imperial justice throughout Yamatai shines as a basis for most of her actions. She is always entrepreneurial in pursuit of her goals; Tokuko tends to use her position as a Fukei to enforce the law with as few resources as possible and often works alone to crack a case. And if you get in her way, you're guilty of obstructing justice.

Still, Tokuko has a charismatic warmth that radiates from within. Most samurai who have served with Tokuko see her in the same way as one would see a strong older sister, even the few Neko who can remember as far back as she can. For all of her crafty wiles and hardcore resolve, justice is about more than what laws exist or do not exist. By no means would Tokuko use “the spirit of the law” as an excuse to let a criminal run free. But if a circumstance arose where one's guilt was not based on their choices, Tokuko would be mindful of the factors that motivated the crime. Indeed, she tries not to exhibit any malice toward the Empire's enemies whatsoever. The worst they get is a cold indifference and a calm, matter-of-fact sentencing.

Luckily for the Empire, this samurai's martial class matches her personality and demeanor. As a young Neko, Tokuko's psychological development proceeded in a way that gave her an ideal moral compass for law work. She knows what is right and what is wrong as second nature, and though such matters are often subjective things, few beings from the Yamataian-Nepleslian cultural sphere would question her judgments.

• Likes: Justice. The law. Summer nights spent hunting among a chorus of cicada on Yamatai. Plucking a fresh fish straight from the water. Folding paper cranes. How your hands smell like oranges for hours after you peel one.
• Dislikes: Criminals. Injustice. The feel of sand on wet skin. Snow.
• Goals: Bring order to the most lawless of the outer colonies.

Ketsurui Zaibatsu created Tokuko on contract for the Ketsurui Clan on August 13, YE 20. She is counted among the first millions of mass production NH-7 Nekovalkyrja created. The only family Tokuko knows are the Ketsurui Samurai and other companions she's met in her time alive.

Tokuko was born as a NH-7 Nekovalkyrja with dark green hair and violet eyes, indicating her status as an independent-model Neko manufactured for purchase by an authorized organization — in this case, the Ketsurui Clan's samurai tradition.

Her year as a white-clad samurai trainee seemed to stretch for ages. Had Tokuko known how fleeting those days actually were she'd have focused her efforts toward mastering a martial form from day one. But her youthful impatience left her with more time for idly reading volumes of the Empire's torts and statutes than it did blind attention to the perfection of a single cut or jab. Such minor decisions seemed to matter little back then, but they probably cost her the prestige of becoming an Eihei-no-insen.

By the time of Tokuko's ascent to the rank of journeywoman samurai, she was a capable warrior nonetheless. Her fascination with the particulars of justice — Yamataian or otherwise — lead her to take on an increasing number of assignments helping disadvantaged Yamataians against unfair odds and deliver help to those places through the kind of order only a Ketsurui Samurai can provide. Her travels took her only as far as the Yamataian core, though. Five years passed before Tokuko felt ready to advance and wear the red hakama of a full samurai.

For two years, Tokuko worked as one of a handful of samurai yoriki²⁾ to the Yamatai National Police's Funky City Police Department liaison. This was a very minor assignment with little status but it immeasurably shaped Tokuko's crime fighting methodology. Truly, the National Police Liaison's office was no more than a few small rooms tucked away in Funky City PD's headquarters. From that office, though, the young warrior could venture out into the unpoliced swathes of Nepleslia's largest Mega City to strike down the iniquity that continues to define it.

During this time, she was given the opportunity to test an early version of the new NH-27 body. Though the hair and eye color of a Neko was no longer dictated by the purpose behind her creation, Tokuko had chosen to retain her violet eyes. But no longer. She'd already done away with her viridian hair during an earlier Soul Transfer to an NH-17 Nekovalkyrja vessel in favor of the same black every Ketsurui Samurai was expected to wear. The honor of being given a test model NH-27 prompted Tokuko to change her eye color to red as a show of respect to her Nekovalkyrjan heritage.

Her time in Funky City went by as fast as her year as a trainee at Samurai House, but not though any conscious effort to do so. At eight years old, Tokuko had learned to take things slow and savor her duties. Nepleslia's secession in YE 28 cut short whatever further plans she or the Yamatai Star Empire had for the dregs of that society.

After that unceremonious ejection alongside other token Yamataian officials Tokuko has traveled from system to system and brought justice, if not always law, to the dark corners of the galaxy. Indeed, so impressive was Tokuko's record of judgments on Nepleslia that Ketsurui Clan elders granted her permission to operate as an autonomous arbiter of imperial justice.

Today, seven years since, Tokuko's gaze has shifted to the reclaimed Yugumo Cluster. Myriad journeys have given her glimpses of the wrongs faced by people living in and driven from the eastern expanse. If the Tenth Fleet's lantern now shines Yamatai's glorious light upon the outer colonies once again, Tokuko is determined to provide the empire's just embrace.

Tokuko traveled to Yamatai (Planet) in YE 38 to attend the Hanami Festival there. She needed transportation back to the Yugumo Cluster and decided to hitch a ride on the YSS Sakishima. For some reason, the trip took almost two years instead of the few weeks tops that Tokuko expected to be in-transit. When she finally arrived back in the Yugumo Cluster, the old samurai found a changing political landscape and a threat that she might even lose her job as one of the Empire's warrior-magistrates in YE 40!

Tokuko is familiar with radio operation and procedures and can make transmissions to and receive transmissions from other characters through telepathy, starships, and power armor, under any conditions. She has native-level fluency of Nepleslian and Yamataian, and can write calligraphy in both.

All Ketsurui Samurai are masters of melee combat. Tokuko is no exception. She is skilled and experienced in combat both in Yamatai-like conditions and in zero-gravity, with and without weapons. Weapons she is expert in include energy pistols, swords, spears, staves, knives, and power armor. Ketsurui Samurai are also trained with grenades, rifles, machine-guns, and a variety of randomized exotic weaponry.

Tokuko has mastered the use of tonfa in combat. These wooden, side-handled batons were originally used for milling grains millennia ago and were adopted by ancient samurai as a tool of war. Usually, Tokuko's tonfa acts as a protective brace on her left arm that allows her to block melee blows while she strikes with her longsword, Handan. The nature of the weapon makes it ideal for quick strikes too, which Tokuko is definitely proficient in delivering to guilty criminals.

Often, Tokuko will fight unarmed using a style of jiujutsu that focuses on shattering the opponent's bones, detaching their tendons, and uncoupling their joints with specific braced strikes for the purpose of immediately disabling them and destroying their will to fight. Other practitioners of the style include SAINT's 482nd Strategic Operations Battalion and a tradition of Kodian warrior-mystics.

Because Tokuko's body was specifically made for samurai use she is an ideal athlete by design, and benefits from all NH-33 (Eihei) abilities.

She can use the Kessaku OS like all of her samurai sisters and comrades in the Star Army.

All Ketsurui Samurai are familiar with the laws of the Yamatai Star Empire. Tokuko has a deep, intimate knowledge of those laws, and has additional knowledge of many local ordinances. She also keeps up with the laws of Nepleslia, Lor, and Elysia since the three are former Yamataian territories.

Tokuko has spent so long trying to understand criminals that she can usually reason what motivates them. Of course, this trick doesn't work exclusively with lawbreakers. She has also been trained and stays up to speed with the latest forensic science and investigative methods.

Like all Ketsurui Samurai, Tokuko has received basic mathematics training and can instantly check complex mathematical equations with her Nekovalkyrja brain.

Tokuko can fold cute little birds and flowers out of paper. She can also fold complex things out of paper, too. But she tends to stick with cute little birds and flowers most of the time. Doing so relaxes her, clears her mind, and makes her happy.

Tokuko has the following items: Ketsurui Clan daisho (Handan and Kage-ka). White kimono. Red hakama. Worn navy blue traveling haori. Samurai's red Uwa-obi (linen and leather sash for securing swords). Straw hat. Ornate wooden Imperial Justice Department seal. Prayer beads. One tonfa³⁾ (“Nintai”).

“Judgment” is Tokuko's hefty Zesuaium tachi⁴⁾ longsword. The impressive 80cm battlefield blade was a gift from Tsuya-sama in recognition for Tokuko's tenth year of service to the clan and empire. Foes of weak resolve have been known to lay down arms after catching sight of Handan's fully drawn magnificence. Its 30cm hilt allows its wielder ample leverage for both single and two-handed use.

Handan's wide blade is a glimmering, satin white silver that catches light in a subtle, mellow way rather than the semi-transparent blue construction of her first sword, Gekkou⁵⁾. Its gold tsuba is adorned with a cutout silhouette bas-relief of an owl in flight over a stylized Yamataian castle, and appears well maintained apart from natural wear and patina. The hilt and saya furniture are shades of crimson red cloth and lacquer inlaid with subtle gold leaf accents and are also somewhat tarnished from the passage of time.

“Shadow Scourge” is the wakizashi shortsword that Tokuko received after her year as a samurai trainee. It is made of transparent semi-transparent blue zesuaium and bears an unremarkable tsuba and scabbard. Kage-ka's hilt has been wrapped in the same spectrum of red cloth as Handan's.

Though the tonfa used by ancient budoka were tools that never warranted identity, Tokuko's matte black “Perseverance” is no wooden farmer's mill. The unique Durandium Alloy baton measures 25cm and was half cored out before being fused with a self-healing Yamataium facing opposite its handle, which is covered by a comfortable dark red Yarvex-cordura blend strap.

Tokuko is currently a Samurai in the Ketsurui Clan.

Tokuko is connected to:

• Koizumi Aratani, cute infantry Neko kohai who wants to learn the samurai way
• Ise Momoka, a nice ship's XO who was nice enough to give Tokuko a ride aboard the YSS Sakishima
• Nicholas Saiga, SAINT buddy from the Yugumo Cluster

things that should go without saying because she is a neko: insatiable sexual appetite. deeply ingrained loyalty to the empire.

creation notes: Very justice-minded. Determined. Kind in person but when it gets down to business she's hardcore in battle and has an almost lawful-stupid level of disregard for opposing points of view. Entrepreneurial woman. You're probably guilty of something according to Yamataian law right now and she'll know what to cite you on without blinking.

NH-7 Technical Manual (Electronic Version) - TM 29-1408-070-12 “Tails or wings may be present on her and she will always have some shade of green or blue hair, and blue-irised (Spacy) or green (Army) eyes, except for test models, which have red-irised eyes, corporate models, which will have yellow eyes, or purchased weapons, which have purple irises.”

Test weapon RED eyes (originally violet eyes because she was a weapon purchased by the Ketsurui Clan. being a samurai, she had the opportunity to test the NH-27 beta whatever. Kept red test-type eyes). sharp asian facial features. pretty (duh she's a damn neko)

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\Created as an NH-7 with green hair and violet eyes. Purchased by Ketsurui Clan and trained as a samurai. Decided to pursue being Fukei. Has been a yoriki (assistant) to many senior Fukei. Upgraded to NH-27 and got RED EYES because she had an early test type. Stationed in Funky City during the YE28 secession. Since then, has been a wayfaring Fukei. Decided now to go to the Yugumo cluster to bring justice there because there is no justice there or some bs.

In the case raz becomes inactive:

Can this character be used as an NPC by a GM or FM? NO

Can this character be adopted after I've been gone for a year? NO