Matsubi Hanako

Sister Hanako

**Matsubi Hanako** was the fourth Iconic Monk of the Collective. She was a kitsune in disguise who sought to earn the wisdom and respect to earn the title of Master at Okuribi-ji, overcoming her age and species and what she perceives as personal failings.

## Appearance

**Body Type:** Petite, toned, a bit bottom-heavy

**Height**:  5’1”

**Skin**:  Pale, with multiple tattoos - on her back, a guardian fox statue holding a scroll in its mouth flanked by a temple bell and monastic weapons. Flaming lotuses on her shoulders, blooming lotuses on her upper thighs, an abstracted one on the back of her neck, and one inside a pawprint on her left buttcheek.

**Hair**: Red-orange with brown-black tips, like a cross fox. Sometimes black when in disguise. Her six tails match.

**Eyes**:  Green, but brassy, reflective, and with slitted pupils.

## History

Okuribi-ji was a monastery high in the mountains above the kitsune village of Kayō-chō. Hanako’s parents were typical kitsune: happy-go-lucky drunks who farmed well enough to treat their two kits right but not well enough to purchase books. Hanako, who was always envious of the Okuribi monks who would pass through to pick up food or share wisdom, ran from home and tried to climb the mountain. A friendly villager woke her parents, and they retrieved her before she could get lost on the winding path. But the monks had cause to want her among their number. Hanako was taken to Okuribi-ji, the Monastery of the Heavenly Fire, to be a librarian.

Okuribi-ji monks revere the clever foxes, and so have a much kinder opinion of the kitsune than many in Hanako’s homeland. They also value their books, collected, copied, and protected, from all over the world. Some monasteries have sacred relics or ancient treasures. Okuribi-ji monks are trained in the art of Hakkyokuken, the Eight Extremes Fist (Chinese: Bajiquan), in order to both protect the books from thieves and to protect the monks who venture out into the world to find them.

Hanako trained diligently, because to her, the mendicant librarians were heroes, risking life and limb to recover texts that might be lost, to learn things that were secret, and of course, to do the feats that wandering monks were usually tasked with - exorcisms, bandit pacifications, spreading the word of their creed not through preaching but through action. Hanako wandered far, interviewing mystics and thugs, digging into ruins to learn about lost civilizations, travelling through time, and even defeating the hungry emissary of another world, though not alone.

### A Librarian's Work

In the short story, *A Librarian's Work*, Hanako faced off against her adversary, Saruhashi, and bested her in hand-to-hand combat.

## Iconic Monk

Hanako became the fourth Iconic Monk in the year 01 EOC.

## Relationships

Hanako had her crushes the wizard Lariam Alsconti and the Iconic Warpriest Wesley Marshal. Her friends include the Iconic Knight Edward Marshal and his wife the Beguiler Mel. She maintained a connection with her teacher Master Yixin and the others at Okuribi Temple. Her other adventuring companions ascended to the heavens. She had a rivalry with the monk Saruhashi Chisaki and a hostility with the Iconic Inquisitor Gisela Hayen and the Avenger Azarel.