Tsuki Yōei (Retired)

Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bitch

• Winner of the Meita Fishing Festival Masters Division

Yōei is an up and coming swordswoman, who has learned that her lack of strength and keen intellect is something often overlooked by her foes. While most swordsmen are armoured brutes or fast torrents of blades, Yōei is a careful combatant who uses her alchemy and poison craft for to great effect, often opting for a single calculated strike to bring their foe down.

## History

Yōei comes from an esteemed family of swordsmen and women, honourable and ingrained in the life of the samurai.

From the time she could walk, Yōei's parents taught her how to defend herself with a sword in hand. She would be taught the art of poetry, how to be respectful to those in power, and how to devote herself to the greater good. Her older sister of 12 years, Kyouko, was prodigious in sword combat in particular and would often cause her and Yōei's parents to be harder on Yōei to keep up.

When Yōei was eight, a strange sickness spread over the town of which she lived. It seemed to only target children, and Yōei was such a child struck by it. Luckily for her, she was well protected by her samurai family and was always looked after, but unfortunately, other sick children started to disappear. Upon investigations conducted by Kyouko, it was found that a Leukodaemon was infecting and taking children to consume their fresh, young souls. Kyouko, among other samurai in the town, leads a charge to get rid of the Leukodaemon. They were successful however Kyoko lost her life in the endeavour, and Yōei never fully recovered from the sickness imposed by the creature. Her strength failed her from then on in, and would never really be able to effectively draw her blade again.

Stricken by the loss of Kyouko and the effects the sickness had on Yōei, the Tsuki family closed themselves off from the rest of society and went into self-preservation. Yōei diverted her time from sword training to alchemy, in the hopes that she could protect her family from disease and sickness from then on. Her parents adopted a poor, homeless child, who only goes by the name of Yasu. Unfortunately for Yasu, they were mainly treated as a pet, as it seemed that they were more of an attempt to fill the void Kyouko left in her parents' hearts.

## A New Combat Art

Ten years on from the Leukodaemon event, Yōei is still quite weak from the sickness that struck her. She left her home to pursue a better life, one where she can help others and protect the world from evils similar to the Leukodaemon that changed her life. Coming from a well known, honourable swordsman family, her leaving the family home drew attention to herself from more unsavoury types who would often challenge her to duels. She would accept, as her honour was more valuable than her life, fully knowing that she couldn't bear arms for longer than a few moments.

One particular encounter, her blade was sundered by a rather hefty strike, splitting it nearly in half lengthways. The blade's weight changed significantly, as it was tapered save for it's end, which jutted out like a hook. The weight seemed bearable to Yōe, and was surprised when she felt a lot more comfortable using the blade in it's new, broken state. She managed to beat her opponent and quickly went to a swordmaker to get her sword reinforced to stay in this state.

   Her combat style quickly evolved from then on, shifting from the traditional bushido arts of the samurai to a light, speedy art of combat of which the small pointed end of her blade would be used to tear or skewer the small amount of flesh left unprotected from armour. As she grew more comfortable with this art form, she noted that the blood of her opponents would linger on the tapered edge of the blade, sitting where the end juts out. With her knowledge of alchemy, she reasoned she could craft poisons that could be easier applied to this kind of blade,s so long as she took a moment to calculate her strikes. She studied the art of poison craft with her knowledge of alchemy and designed a unique poison of which she hopes could eventually be used to cleanse evil, even if the evil were normally resistant or immune to poison naturally (like most outsiders whom she would like to hunt.)

As of the current timeline, Yōei focuses on wearing her opponents down with her poison soaked blade. She employs various kinds of poisons, including her own concoction that's unique to her only. When not employing poison, she uses the end of her blade to bleed her opponents out.

## Life as an Adventurer

### Introduction

Upon coming to this new land, Yōei has been running her own combat drills to improve. Now that a blizzard has started to have a negative effect on the health of her peers, she has taken it upon herself to draw together a group of medically inclined people to tend to the sick. *1st Calistril, 44 IA*

### The Meita Fishing Festival

Yōei decided to participate in the Meita Fishing Festival, hoping to try her luck and see if she could win something fun. Upon a string of failures, the final day of the festival saw Yōei winning in the Master's Division with the first place winning catch! For her troubles, she won a Legendary Fishing Rod. *9th Gozran, 44 IA*

### The Winter Court Invades Fair Maiden!

When Queen Mab starts her invasion of Fair Maiden, Yōei is quick to act in gathering the information necessary to end it. As well as providing the nearby townsfolk and refugees alchemical solutions to the oppressive blizzard. *Gozran, 44 IA*

Yōei met with Regnar, Kyras, and Valaron to discuss the group's findings regarding the situation, and devised a plan of action to ensure Fair Maiden's safety. She was introduced to Mikuno, who also expressed sentiment to help the group with the growing situation. Sheis currently residing at Tara's Villa while they continue their investigations. *11th Gozran, 44 IA*

## Appearance

   Yōei is a small, lithe human woman. Given her previous experiences in life, she has little to no muscle or fat mass to speak off, and she makes a point to hide that fact. Her skin is pale white, almost pallid, and underneath her clothing black veins run along her skin, most likely due to the sickness she was afflicted with as a child.

Yōei typically wears a lot of pinks and teals, as they compliment each other and her purple eyes quite well. Her usual adventuring gear is a simple yet baggy cloth uniform, with a white, pink, and teal haori patterned in the likeness of butterfly wings.

Her hair is quite short for a woman, with her fringe only reaching her chin. The rest of her hair is usually tightly pulled into a ponytail or bun, fashioned together in various pins or bands with butterfly iconography. When her hair is down, it reaches the nape of her neck.

## Personality

Yōei is typically quiet, reserved, and respectful when dealing with new people. She tries to hide her emotional state behind a facade of happiness or calm, and will make light of any situation. She still holds a great deal of fear for creatures and beings that come from evil, and extends even to those distantly related to evil, such as Tieflings and Underkin.

   In combat, she is cool headed initially while she calculates the best way to deal with her opponents. Once she finds a weakness, she won't stop going for said weakness and will use it to expose the enemy further. She has grown fond of watching her enemies perish in front of her, as a result of her lack of strength. To her, it's a sign that her tactics are sound and affirms her stance as a skilful swordswoman.

If she is aware of evil in her presence, she'll stop at nothing to do one of three things: pull them from the throes of evil, subdue them, or kill them. If she must kill someone who is evil she is initially distasteful but grows content the more she attacks them, her bloodlust and sadism rearing its ugly head.

## Abilities

Yōei is a swordswoman who specialises in medical combat. She is a master practitioner, who has learned to employ sphere techniques from both her Alchemist and Scholar training.

Her main form of offense comes in the form of her Arcanotoxin, a unique poisonous concoction that locks the joints and envelops targets with lethargy. From her Bushido upbringing, Yōei is skilled in duelling and employs a mixture of drawn-out cuts to bleed targets dry as well as piercing strikes to dig her poison deeper for a stronger effect.

    Despite her skills in offense, she's most effective as a healer and supportive ally. Her sphere alchemy can be used to heal her party en masse, and with special inoculations can protect her allies from the ill effects of her alchemy while still letting them reap the benefits. Her traditional alchemic practises are reserved mainly to supplement her combat effectiveness.

She also possesses a very limited form of flight, thanks to her light body and swiftness.

## Aspirations

Yōei's main aspiration is to cleanse the realm of all evil. She's not aware of the balance of Good and Evil, so she doesn't seem to think this aspiration is wholly unreasonable.

Secondary aspirations, in no particular order, are as follows:

* Start a clinic to tend to the sick,
* Find love,
* Bring honour to her family name,
* Earn enough of a living to bring her parents and Yasu out of work, and

* Become the Sword Master of the realm.

## Connections

    As she is quite new to this part of the world, Yōei doesn't know many people. Because of her quiet and respectful demeanour, for the most part, she hasn't shown a lot of herself to others and they don't show themselves to her. However, she has met a few people in her adventures, and they are as follows:

* **Korthrazath**, the surprisingly kind and not-out-to-kill-everything demonkind. He interrupted her combat drills sometime between 11 - 12 Abadius, walking right where she was about to attack.T hey found that they both have a common enemy, and expressed hope to work together sometime.

* **Regnar**, **Kyras**, **Mikuno**,and **Valaron** all met Yōei during a discussion on how to best deal with Queen Mab's forces. She hasn't had the time to really get to know them all, but as they're all doing business she doesn't mind their company.