Sakura (Usagi Yojimbo)

**Sakura** is a professional gambler and acquaintance of Gen's who first appeared in Usagi Yojimbo Issue #111 and is on a seemingly unending quest to find her long lost brother. Despite the unsavory nature of her occupation as a gambler, Sakura is deeply compassionate to those in need and has strong resentment to those who harm the innocent. Those who mistake her for a mere helpless beauty quickly learn to fear the sting of her whip.

## History

Sakura came from a prominent samurai family, but they were on the losing side of the Great War that instituted the current Shogunate. Her father was stripped of all his vassals, possessions and wealth, leaving his family destitute. Desperate for money, Sakura's father sold her younger brother to an umbrella maker as common help. Eventually, Sakura's mother and father died, and with no other family left in the world, she went out in search of her brother. Sadly, she discovered that the umbrella shop he was sold to had closed down and her brother was long gone now, but she refused to give up on finding him.

To continue her quest as well as to make a living, Sakura became an itinerant gambler specializing in handling dice for games of Cho-Han in order to gather information in gambling halls and because the kind of people drawn to those places would know about missing persons. As a professional gambler, Sakura has very elaborate cherry blossom tattoos on her arms and chest that almost appear as if they're growing out of her skin. Sakura eventually became an acquaintance of Gen's as both their respective occupations draw them to the seedy and dangerous parts of society.

Usagi first encountered Sakura while traveling with Gen. The two ronin were walking down a mountain path while Sakura was walking on the main road to a nearby village. When Usagi saw that Sakura was being accosted by local ruffians, he impulsively decided to rush down the long, narrow path down the mountain path to aid her, despite Gen's insistence to simply watch what might happen, but Usagi refused to ignore someone in possible danger. Unfortunately, in his rush, Usagi tumbled down the hill, but while he was still struggling to reach her, Sakura finally had enough of the uncouth thugs bothering her. When she struck one of them with her walking stick, the thugs attacked her with their swords. Then she drew her whip and used it to deftly throw and disarm her attackers, the cracked it at them to scare them off. By the time Usagi reached Sakura, the thugs were already fleeing in terror. Unfortunately, Sakura mistook Usagi as another brigand and attacked him with her whip. Usagi could barely dodge the angry woman's attacks and she almost disarmed him of his sword. The fight would've escalated further if Gen hadn't finally shown up and told Sakura that Usagi was a friend of his, revealing that the two of them were already familiar with each other. When Usagi demanded to know why Gen didn't mention that he knew this woman, Gen said it was payback for making fun of him earlier.

The three of them made their way to an inn at the nearby village where Usagi treated Sakura to a meal, and she relayed the story of her past to him about her quest to find her brother and how she makes a living as bakuto, an itinerant gambler. She asked the innkeeper where the town's gambling den was, to which he derisively answered that the local den, "The Black Peony", was just down the road and run by Boss Kaneko, a gang boss who held the town in a vise. Sakura had head of Kaneko's reputation as a vile, despicable man, but money was still money, no matter what kind of person she received it from. She thanked Usagi for the meal and went on her way.

Sakura arrived at the Black Peony and announced herself as a skilled dice handler to Boss Kaneko. Intrigued, the gang leader allowed her to handle the dice for that evening's game of Cho-Han. When Sakura removed her kimono sleeve to handle the dice, she shocked the gamblers with her elaborate cherry blossom tattoos. Sakura handled the dice throughout the entire evening and turned Boss Kaneko a very nice profit. When Kaneko paid Sakura her share of the winnings, he made her an offer of permanent employment, but she respectfully declined as she had her own journey to continue. Boss Kaneko then called in for a drink to celebrate the evening's winnings. The serving girl who brought the sake was a young child, and Sakura noticed how sad she looked, prompting Sakura to ask about her. Boss Kaneko derisively answered that the girl's name was Momo; her father was a gambler who owed him a huge debt but couldn't pay, so Kaneko took Momo instead. When her father raked up another huge debt a week later, Kaneko sent his men to teach him a lesson, but they went too far and killed him instead.

Feeling sympathy for the young girl, Sakura offered to pay off the debt and return Momo to her mother. Boss Kaneko stated that the debt was much more than the evening's profits, and when the of them couldn't reach an agreement, Sakura angrily knocked the gang boss out with the handle of her whip and took Momo. Sakura then rushed back to the inn where Usagi and Gen were staying and asked that they hide them.

Soon, Boss Kaneko's thugs came to Usagi and Gen's room, stating that Sakura had stolen Boss Kaneko's property and demanded that they be handed over immediately, but Usagi made it clear that nobody else was in the room and warned them not to barge into this room so long as it was his. Fearful of the long-eared ronin's anger, the thugs left, not knowing that Sakura and Momo were in fact hiding on the balcony and not in the room. Sakura thanked the two ronin for hiding them and asked for their help in getting Momo safely back to her mother.

Boss Kaneko was furious that his "property" had been stolen from him and refused to let this insult go unanswered. Knowing that Sakura intended to get Momo back to her mother, Kaneko ordered his men to kidnap her, and by the time Sakura and her friends arrived at the house with Momo, her home was already ransacked and Momo's mother taken. Momo tearfully blamed Sakura for what happened to her mother, wishing she had just left her as Kaneko's slave. Sakura promised Momo that they would reunite with her mother.

With Momo's mother as his hostage, Kaneko knew that they'd come to his hideout, so he hired more ronin for protection. Unfortunately, most of the ronin he hired were ill-disciplined, unskilled drunks, and were no match for Sakura, Usagi and Gen when they showed up to Kaneko's mansion that night. The three of them forced their way in and took out any gangster that got in their way. When Kaneko saw his being slaughtered, he ran to the storehouse where he was keeping Momo's mother hostage. While Gen and Usagi handled Kaneko's thugs, Sakura went after their boss. When she entered the storehouse, Kaneko already had a blade to Momo's mother's throat. Sakura closed the door behind her, covering the entire storehouse in darkness, stating that vermin like Kaneko should only scurry in the dark. As Kaneko angrily threatened the woman and demanded Sakura show herself, she quietly climbed into the rafters, and thanks to Kaneko's angry ranting, she was able to wrap her whip around his neck and hung him from one of the beams, snapping his neck.

With the rest of Kaneko's men either dead or fled thanks to Usagi and Gen, Sakura was able to reunite Momo with her mother. With the gangsters taken care of and Momo now safe, the three of them decided to move on from this town. Sakura still had her own quest to fulfill and bid the two ronin farewell. Usagi stated that he hoped Sakura would one day be able to find her brother, but Gen stated that she never will because Sakura never had a brother.

## Fighting Style

Sakura is unique as a combatant in the fact that she uses a whip as her main weapon, which were not very common in Japanese martial arts. It's a pain compliance weapon that can injure an opponent but not kill them. The whip does have a distinct advantage over swords in the fact that it's the only hand-held weapon that can break the sound barrier and can hit an opponent faster than a sword can, while its reach keeps enemies from getting too close.

Sakura's mastery of the whip is to such an extent that it's practically an extension of her arms. The strikes from her whip are extremely precise and very painful. Not only can she use her whip to grab an enemy by their limbs, neck and head to grapple them to the ground, but she can also easily snatch a sword from an opponent's hands and grab it in midair and can use the handle of her whip like a club to crack an enemy across the face.

She also possesses very keen senses as she was able to navigate her way into the rafters and deftly use her whip to strangle Boss Kaneko in complete darkness.