Rei Sakai

**Reika Sakai**, often called by her nickname **Rei** or anglicized name **Erika**, is a brash young woman who has built her identity around her competition with her older pro hero brother, and her fight to show the world she's more than his shadow. She works as a personal trainer at a gym in Ockross, and also takes on the identity of the petty villain **Ronin**.

## General Information

### Quick Stats

Gender: cis female

Sexuality: lesbian

Age: 22

Alignment: chaotic evil

Likes: training, parkour sword fighting, competition of any sort, any kind of fried food, anime

Dislikes: being beaten, admitting she's beaten, her brother, her family, losing control, being ignored

### Physical Appearance

Rei is a tall and well-built young woman of Japanese descent, with black hair tied back in a tight bun and brown eyes. She often has bags under her eyes, and her arms and legs are always covered in bruises and scrapes. She typically wears a denim jacket over a maroon t-shirt and sweatpants, with black sneakers.

As Ronin, she wears a dark gray samurai-style helmet with maroon curved horn decorations, matching semi-lightweight gunmetal colored plate armor, and black combat boots. There are a pair of curved swords held in brown leather scabbards with maroon trim on her back, one longer than the other.

### Personality

Rei is, at first glance, a reckless, impulsive, and quick-tempered woman. And one glance might give you all you need to know. She is a rather prideful person that revels in chaos and destruction both due to the anger it can release and as a show of strength to others. She is impatient and terse, and refuses to engage in any sort of pleasantries or recreation that would distract her from the task at hand. However, she also can be demanding and forceful when there's something she needs, as she would rather be hated than ignored. She's not really a people person, as she's always closed herself off and favored brute force over diplomacy, causing her to often push people away. If she's not being angry, she doesn't really know what to do with herself in a social interaction, and can get uncomfortable and flustered in these situations.

When she dons the armor and helmet of Ronin, her personality only intensifies with the anonymity. Ronin is fearless and brash, even dangerously so. Her judgement can often be clouded by anger and cause her to lose sight of her own well-being, as she gets tunnel vision and focuses only on causing as much destruction as possible. She is Ronin, and she is better than her brother will ever be! She won't stop until she finally receives her recognition.

However, behind her arrogance and tendency to lash out is a deep insecurity and resentment for the blindness of the public and a bitter sorrow at her own neglect. Being a villain is her attempt at filling a void of purposelessness, resentment, and self-loathing that has haunted her for so long. As much as she feeds her ego with demonstrations of strength and power, as Erika and as Ronin, she can't remember the last time she's done something that's felt genuinely fulfilling.

### History

Rei has always been overlooked. Her parents were both immigrants from Japan that settled down in Ockross shortly after their marriage. Rei was born about a year later, where she and her older brother Kenneth were raised by her parents, grandparents on her mom's side. Though she was born in the States, unlike Kenneth, she favored her given name of Reika (and nickname Rei) over its anglicized version. She was always jealous of her older brother, who seemed to be the favorite child and garner the attention, but when Kenneth's power of weapon summoning manifested and everyone started fawning over him, she began to grow resentful and withdraw from the rest of her family. Even from a young age, she's learned to convert the insecurity of living in her older brother's shadow into a fierce pride.

There had always been tension in her family. Her parents were tired and stressed from working long hours to support both kids as well as Mrs. Sakai's parents. They would always argue about how to best ensure Kenneth's success, with Mr. Sakai worrying about Kenneth getting hurt as a pro hero and Mrs. Sakai insisting that it was the best way for him to make use of his talent. Rei, on the other hand, was a difficult child, so most of her time with her parents was focused on disciplinary action.

The last straw for the family was when Erika's grandmother passed away from cancer, which led to a big mess of hospital bills, politics of inheritance, and Mrs. Sakai accusing Mr. Sakai of gold digging. They divorced when Rei was twelve, leaving the two kids with their father. She closed herself off from her father and brother, putting her head down to "focus on school" but really just staying out with friends and learning to fight with a sword as an outlet for her anger. She left to live on her own as soon as she was able, at the age of eighteen. When she first saw her brother, now an up-and-coming pro hero by the name of Armory, on local television, she finally decided that something had to be done and took on the identity of Ronin. Villainy doesn't pay the bills in the same way being a pro hero does, so she currently works a day job as a personal trainer at Sunrise Fitness, a small gym in Ockross, and it's the closest thing she has to a happy place.

### Abilities

**Katanas:** She fights with twin swords and is highly skilled with wielding them.

**Athleticism/Parkour:** Rei is strong, fast, and good at jumping/dodging/grappling/whatever physical stunts she may have to pull.

**Sheer determination:** You know the meme about the bird that keeps itself in the air through the sheer force of anger alone? Yeah, that's Rei. She fights like a berserker, like someone who has nothing to lose.

### Weaknesses

**Ranged and elemental based attacks:** She is highly susceptible to blasts, projectiles, etc, basically any type of attack or obstacle that can't be solved by hitting it with a sword.

**Being outclassed by those with powers:** She hates it, and has trained all her life to try and overcome this disadvantage, but she's never going to be stronger or more dangerous than someone with metahuman blood.

**Emotional instability:** This is a girl that does not like to talk about her feelings, and if you know how to egg her on she can easily be overwhelmed. It's also easy to get the best of her temper.

### Trivia

* Left-handed
* A ronin is a wandering samurai without a master to serve

## Heroes of Ockross

### Relationships

* Family
	+ Kentaro Sakai/Armory- older brother
	+ Father- he was a pretty passive person who cared for Rei but mostly let her do her own thing if she wished
	+ Mother- their relationship was pretty tense and rocky, as Erika often acted out when she was younger
	+ Maternal grandparents- she was never really close to them, but they were rather strict and traditional and among the few people she would never talk back to
* Friends
	+ Celia Ruiz- Rei met Celia at the Ockross pride parade and defended her from a group of harassers, and has assumed the role of her lesbian mentor
	+ Jordan Pierce/Bladedance- Jordan and Rei were close as kids but drifted apart as they got older. After a recent run-in at the gym where Rei works, they reconnected. Jordan helped forge Rei's katanas before they knew of her villainous tendencies. And now that Jordan knows Ronin's identity, they're too worried about risking their friendship to say anything.
* Rivals
	+ Martin Cooper/Whitetail- Whitetail and Ronin have confronted each other several times, and they are evenly matched in swordplay, causing them to hold a begrudging respect for each other despite their very different fighting styles (the rapier lunges and pierces while the katana hacks and slashes). Neither know each others' civilian identities.
	+ Remy Diaz/Weaponizer (played by GP)- Though they don't know each other personally, Rei is jealous of Weaponizer and how easily they were able to succeed as a powerless superhero, creating a sort of one-sided rivalry in her mind. She obviously refuses to accept that she didn't turn out like Weaponizer due to her own bad attitude...