Name: Kokoro Nakamura
Codename: Wraith
Age: 451 (ageless, appears 22)
Date of Birth: January 9, 1562
Height: 5' 2"
Weight: variable
Hair Color: White
Eye Color: Black
Place of Origin: Kyoto, Japan
Nationality/Race: Japanese
Classification/Origin of Powers: Magic bound spirit
Status: refugee
Occupation: Vigilante
Personality Profile: Typically serious and direct with little use for frivolous things
Physical Description: Appears to be a young Japanese woman, but with long white hair.
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General Power Information: Kokoro's soul was bound to a cursed sword. She is an undead creature who feeds off of the life of others to sustain herself and her powers
Ability One:Immortality. Kokoro cannot be harmed by conventional means as she has no body to harm. She is a spirit who can become corporeal through force of will. She feeds off of the life force of other beings to give her the strength needed to maintain a corporeal form.
Ability Two: Soulsense. As a spirit, Kokoro connects instinctually with the souls around her. She senses lifeforce and can gain a sense of the level of corruption from innocent to irredemable. This connection also removes language and understanding barriers. When she talks people hear her in their native language, Even the deaf can understand what she says, however creatures without a biological life force only hear her speak in her native tongue, Japanese, and a very old dialect at that.
Ability Three: Kokoro's third power isn't so much her as it is her cursed sword. The magic that binds the blade is strong, making the sword nearly indestructable and sharp enough to cut hardened steel as easily as if it were bamboo.
Drawbacks & Weaknesses: Kokoro's soul is tied to her blade, should it ever be destroyed she would finally find rest as well. She also cannot be parted from the sword for more than a few minutes without quickly losing strength and becoming a trapped spirit within the blade again.
In order to maintain her presence in the realm of the living Kokoro has to take the life of others. She is, in effect, a vampire, feeding off of the living. Though instead of drinking their blood she simply steals the very essence that makes them alive. She can only maintain her form for mere days between feedings and if she starves she reverts to a trapped spirit within her sword.
Skills: Kokoro is a trained samurai warrior tempered in the fires of feudal Japan. She is highly skilled in the use of weapons of the period as well as in hand-to-hand combat using Jiujitsu, Aikido, and karate
Background: The sixteenth century, a tumultuous time for feudal Japan; warlords vied for control of the Shogunate and war was commonplace. It was during this time that Kokoro Nakamura was born. Her father was a vassal of one of the warring lords, a loyal Samurai, and so from a very young age Kokoro was taught the art of war.
During one skirmish or another Kokoro’s father was crippled and rather than face the shame of being unable to further serve his master he performed ritual suicide in the hopes that his son, Kokoro’s younger brother, would not bear the shame of his father and carry on their family name.
Before he died, Kokoro’s father charged her with protecting her younger sibling, and so when war once again broke out and the men were called to the front, she disguised herself as a man and followed her brother into battle.
Kokoro was diligent and careful as she watched over her brother, slaying his enemies without hesitation until they were separated by canon fire and her brother’s regiment was captured. They were all scheduled for public execution, their heads to be placed on pikes and paraded around. Kokoro abandoned the army and stealthily snuck into the enemy warlord’s castle to free her brother. During the rescue operation she ended up assassinating the warlord with his own sword, an ancient weapon with a dark and bloody history. Many claimed that it drank the souls of those it slew, that if one put their ear to the blade they could hear them all screaming from hell.
Kokoro was touted as a hero of the war. That is until it was revealed that she was a woman. It was then that her entire family was sentenced to execution. In order to save her family’s honor and her brother’s life she pleaded that she be allowed to perform the ritual suicide. She had lived as a samurai and wished to die as one. Her lord granted her the request, but demanded that she use the cursed blade of the enemy warlord rather than her own family blade.
When she slit open her belly, the sword stole her life, and her soul, forever binding her to the dark blade.
Where the sword went, she went, and her story became legend; the sword became a historical treasure, an artifact kept in museums and shown to people around the world where her story was recited and through the centuries she watched from her prison and listened while the world grew and changed around her.
She felt as if she could reach out, influence those around her subtly through dreams and planted suggestions, and felt that if she pulled hard enough that she could even steal the life of whoever held her. The people who looked after her now were not bad people. They were scholars and teachers. They didn’t deserve such a death.
Eventually she was boxed up as part of an exhibition of feudal artifacts and sent overseas to tour America. From state to state she was carted off, Museum to museum, until at last she ended up in the history museum in Salem where a couple of no-good thugs hatched a sinister plot to steal some of the priceless relics and see what they could get for them down at ye-olde pawn shop. They murdered the guard and made off with several valuable items including, of course, the cursed blade of the warlord.
Though she had hungered for life for many centuries, her sense of honor and her kind heart had prevented her from feasting on the innocent. Here, however, were two men who were far from innocent. She sensed their souls, blackened by their many foul deeds. As the men sat back in their abandoned apartment to browse their haul, one of them gripped the sword, meaning to swing it around for fun. He didn’t even have breath to scream as his life was ripped from him violently, leaving him a mummified husk. As the thug’s accomplice looked on in horror the sword rose from the ground, hovering in the air while energy seemed to ooze from the blade of the sword like blood, and reform the body of Kokoro, her eyes burning with hatred, paralyzing the hardened criminal with fear as she stalked forward and added his soul to her collection.
Freed from her prison she had a choice. Return to her slumber, or live again. The world had changed drastically. She had watched that change throughout the centuries. Was there any place for a warrior in these modern times? She glanced down at the shells of flesh that were once men at her feet and made her decision. There was still evil in the world, evil men who skated by without justice being dealt to them. She would be that justice, and they would be her fodder.
Since that time she has earned a name in the criminal underworld. The vigilante known as Wraith: Silent as the grave who attacks without warning and leaves you empty, soulless, and very, very dead.
Criminal Record: The police have a file on her, but have never seen her. The file is about a vigilante that the street scum call Wraith.
Quirks, Extras, Random Character Facts: Coming soon!
