Kaoru Yuu

Personal Information

• Legal Name: Kaoru Yuu
• Alias: 夜の蜘蛛 [Rough Translation: "The Night Spider"] AKA "The Ninja"
• Age: 27
• Sexuality: Heterosexual
• Part of Gotham Residing In: A Dojo/Apartment in a particularly bad part of Downtown

Physical Description

Kaoru is said to seem to stand taller then he actually does, a tribute to his posture and obvious training. At least its obvious to anyone who has had extensive training themselves. Obviously Japanese by ancestry he has taken to wearing his hair long as a sign of his relaxing of some of his older attitudes, and so that his milky eyes aren't immediately obvious. Blind since childhood, he is often seen with a blind man's cane if he rarely actually needs it. Not all of his old attitudes have been relaxed obviously, his physique has been described as looking like he wasn't born so much as cut out of rock. That killer edge is still there though, as when he teaches his classes he gets deadly serious.

Persona

A relaxed immigrant that's done very well getting into the Melting Pot that is America. Speaks English and Japanese with seeming equal skill, though in truth his Japanese is said to be nothing short of poetic. He goes to coffee shops, he chats with policemen on the street, he helps out in his neighborhood - until he's on the clock. He sheds the relaxed attitude entirely when teaching self-defense classes - there he's said to be one of the toughest teachers in Gotham, and the most rewarding.

To anyone in the know about the League of Shadows, it's almost like he's giving just ordinary citizens certain select Shadow-Assassin lessons to teach them to defend themselves. Suspiciously so...

Key Skills

• Expert Martial Artist (Ninjutsu, Shaolin Kung Fu, League of Shadows) - Kaoru is considered a world class martial artist in at least two major martial arts forms and would be considered one in the third as well if its existence was publicly acknowledged.
• Old World and Improvised Weapons - Kaoru is also highly trained in the use of weapons traditionally associated with Shinobi Warriors. Though he does far better with the Melee ones then the thrown ones. He's also picked up a surprising amount of skill at just using ordinary objects around him as melee weapons, especially his cane.
• Detective - While nowhere near Batman's level, he can easily keep up with a police detective and is rumored to do odd jobs as an unlicensed PI in his community.

Advantages

• Sensory Adaptation - Kaoru has been blind since early childhood, and while the old legend about the other senses gaining superhuman sharpness is just a myth his brain has compensated. His other senses aren't superhumanly sharp but from practice and his brain adapting to his blindness all of his other senses are significantly sharper and more sensitive then a normal person's.
• Shadow Warrior - While other combatants experience at least some drop in proficiency when the local environment is too dark to see clearly, Kaoru actually becomes a better fighter when the local environment is too dark for normal vision. Forced to adapt his fighting style to perpetual darkness he can use it to his advantage far better then most.
• Body Language Analysis - Nowhere to the level of Lady Shiva or Batman, but Kaoru can read body language to some degree if they're doing something particularly loud, quiet, or aggressive. He knows Bruce Wayne is not nearly the idle playboy he makes out to be and while he doesn't know that Bruce Wayne IS Batman he would probably figure it out nearly instantly if he ever was within hearing range of Batman fighting someone - especially if he was the opponent.
• High Physical Abilities - He isn't the strongest, fastest, or toughest human on the planet but he is at or near peak human in all categories.
• High Pain Threshold - Kaoru can absorb a surprising amount of damage and still be an effective combatant.

Disadvantages

• Blindness - Kaoru has been physically blind since early childhood, and while he has overcome this in many ways he has by no means overcome this in all.
• Death Wish - Kaoru believes that he's living on borrowed time, and that his death in the near future is all but certain. The League of Shadows might think he's dead but they probably have figured out the truth. As cliche as it sounds to him the only question is if he'll have an honorable death when the time comes.
• Womanizer - Part of his determination to get as much as he can out of what time he has left has been to sleep with as many women as he can. It's not a wise choice and he knows it, but he does it anyway.

Background

Kaoru Yuu was born in Osaka, Japan to a father that unfortunately owed gambling money to the Yakuza. When the Yakuza started getting forceful with his father to pay up, one time they couldn't find his father but they could find him - so they put industrial grade bleach into Kaoru's eyes. Blinded for life, it would give his father the push he needed to do the right thing. He'd stand up to the Yakuza and work with the police to bring them down.

Which, needless to say, got them killed. Both of Kaoru's parents would of been murdered in front of his eyes if those eyes still worked. Instead he heard the shots, the gasps for breath, smelled the gunpowder...

Anger, rage, grief a stranger claiming to be Kaoru's uncle offered an outlet for these things and a path to Vengeance in the art of the Shinobi. His blindness and young age meant at first meant that it took him more time to learn even the basics but when he started getting them the pace sped up faster and faster. Soon the blind ninjutsu master reaped bloody vengeance on his parent's murderers, which earned him the nickname "夜の蜘蛛" (or roughly "The Night Spider" in English) in the Japanese underworld and got him the attention of the League of Shadows.

They took him in, trained him their ways - swore to turn him into an instrument of vengeance against those who murder parents and blind children, and the League of Shadows delivered on that promise several times over. Kaoru embraced the life and the League for years, a killer vigilante who acted all over the world. But as a member of the League of Shadows, Kaoru had been blinded in more way then one. He was fine with killing individual murderers, but there were lines we found he wasn't willing to cross like the plans to destroy the city of Gotham - innocent and murderer alike.

When Bruce Wayne destroyed that training camp of the League of Shadows, to Koaru it was a blessing. Able to use it to fake his own death, Kaoru wandered the mountains seeking either death or a sign to continue and he found it in a hidden Shaolin Temple. There he learned a lesson neither his parents, his Ninjutsu master, nor the League of Shadows was able to teach him - he learned some measure of peace with himself.

He left the temple soon after, knowing that while he can master the physical skills of Shaolin Kung Fu quickly the spiritual lessons would forever be beyond his reach. Wandering again, he was hearing stories about this "Batman" of Gotham City that stopped the League plans. Curious, he would get a boat to come over.

He'd get a job at the Blade And Soul Dojo in Downtown Gotham, helping teach classes despite his at the time relatively poor grasp of English. A grasp that got better as his own classes got more popular. You went to the other teachers at the Blade And Soul to get physically fit, he was the one that taught you to defend yourself against abusive boyfriends and whole gangs at once. His grasp of English got better too - just in time for Chelsea.

He'd heard one of his students mention it to her friends. Brenda Wing's roommate at Gotham State, a Chelsea Saunders, was found in Trillium Park - brutally raped and left for dead. Brenda even claimed to know who was responsible but wasn't going to tell the police out of fear. What she didn't realize is that she didn't tell the police - she told someone much worse. Yes, he had learned some level of peace from the Shaolin Monks - but only some.

The gang that attacked Chelsea was found at the entrance of Trillium Park - and anyone who had been in Japan during the "Night Spider" attacks would of seen how much it looked like the work of that vigilante save that the victims were still alive. Thoroughly broken, bleeding, and at best if they ever walk again it'll be with a cane but their hearts were still beating. And they weren't the first. The "Night Spider" is alive and well it seems and now prowls the streets of Gotham instead of Osaka. In Gotham, when one hears the word Vigilante they think of the Batman - how will Gothamites react to the news of vigilante attacks that look like the Batman has become more brutal? Like he still doesn't kill - but now he's willing to surprise you with just how much the human body can survive? And what happens when people start figuring out that he's someone else entirely?

Character Extras

• Face Claim: Rain
• Ons and Offs: Group Sex, Oral Sex, Dirty Talk