Chiaru

## **Appearance**

The first thing most people notice about Chiaru is not her diminutive height or even her Japanese ethnicity, but rather the prominent eye patch that takes up almost half her face. After that, if she notices them staring, it's the piercing red gaze of the remaining eye, focused and intense. Perhaps the reason for this is because despite her height of 5'2", Chiaru carries herself with a 'gives no fucks' straightness to her shoulders and isn't afraid to meet a stranger's eyes. Not that she's going out of her way to make people uncomfortable, unless they've done something that makes her believe they deserve that discomfort.

The revenant isn't a beautiful woman, but it's possible that if she had lived, she would have become one. Instead, she hovers permanently at the age of nineteen with pale skin - not the kind seen on models, but rather the color of a body in an open-casket funeral - black hair chopped abruptly below the chin, and horns that peek out from where they're hidden under thick bangs. There's potential in her, frozen in time like the corpse she is, a flower that never truly was able to blossom, and that potential is written on an attractive enough face, in her bright and friendly smile when it shows, and in her quiet demeanor.

If there is any single word that would describe the look of the Black Bull, it is *intent*. Every look, every movement, every step she takes is purposeful and with meaning, like the calm before the storm.

## **Personality**

Soft-spoken and mild-mannered, Chiaru doesn't immediately come across as one of the most relentless Tale of Fury motifs. The saying goes that revenge is a dish best served cold, but the revenant disagrees with calm sureness, "I'm not cold. I'm just taking my time to savor it. Like a glass of plum wine."

Whether her solid and stoic Taurus nature has tempered the Fury inside or simply created an "eye of the storm" in Chiaru, it's uncertain. What is certain is that while she may not burn on the surface, her unrelentless pursuit of justice (her term) has taken her far from Tokyo and it's a clear sign that something simmers underneath - likely the driving hatred that breathes "life" into all revenants.

Honorable to a fault, loyal and true, most who have met her have wondered at least once why such a woman would be Unseelie. Chiaru, however, knows the truth of her own heart better than most: even though she herself is the unchanging undead, the world shifts like sand around her, and she intends to make sure it never stops.

## **Background**

### **Fae**

Most of the area around Ryugu-jo, the great underwater city in the seas of Murias, is ocean. However, remnants of the Kami make their home on it's shores, frequently those who are less prone to an aquatic life. Chiaru, a young Qilin, was one of these Fae. Inhabiting a quiet stone temple surrounded by beach and murky but pretty swamp lands, the great black mare had enjoyed her quiet life guarding her home. Inside, on a stone alter, had rested Izumi, a sleeping beauty that had once been human and over her hundreds of years in Tir Na Nog had slowly turned into something else, something *more*.

It was that something more, and likely the treasure spear embedded in her chest, that had attracted Isonash to the temple. A dragon, and ever greedy and demanding, he had struck the temple with the full force of his will. It's possible, if Chiaru hadn't been known to him, that he could have failed in his task of acquiring the frozen blossom and her ice spear, but since he knew her weakness - the very thing he craved, he won.

When her broken and battered body had been torn to pieces and dragged to the four corners of the realm, Chiaru had found herself still unable to die, but changed. Unfortunately, by the time she reached her equally destroyed home, the dragon had fled, and he had taken her charge with him. Full of righteous anger, a desire for revenge, and a foolish wish to reclaim what she had lost, she chased him from the realm, across the great sea, and waited over twenty years in Demos Oneroi until one woman's death gave her the ability to walk in the realm of men...

### **Mortal**

Like the Fae she would bind with, Hanemura Yoshiko lived a quiet life. Her village had a mere hundred people and she and her father were close. Her mother had died when she was six, so since her father was the only family she had, she was lucky enough to be raised around his forge as if she had been a son.

Swordsmiths were honored, but the Shogunate was demanding and unflinching. When he sent Kami loyal to him to Katanakaji no Mura, her father had sent her out to the well, knowing what was to come. However, ever the loyal but not always obedient daughter, she hadn't stayed there. As the men, women, and children of her village were slaughtered even as they ran, she sought only to find her father. And then, after he fought valiantly against three samurai before falling himself, she faced off against the man who would be her - and her Fae counterpart's - gravest enemy.

*The Blue Ghost.*

She did not win.

### **Fatebound**

In her time since that fateful moment when the Black Bull found the woman's bloody body in the mud, Chiaru has had more of a life than either of her previous ones combined. Her pursuit of her revenge was relentless, in a way, but it was never her only focus. After all, if you're given a life - even just a fragment of one - what is the purpose of it if not to *live*? Chiaru accepts this as one of her core truths: life is meant to be lived.

It's because of this belief, discovered in the first few weeks after Yoshiko's death and subsequent resurrection, that the revenant spent the first fourty years of her existence after Fatebinding establishing a family. She fell in love with Kane, a ronin who still holds her heart to this day, had children, only one of whom has survived the centuries - Ayumi, and had grand-children. Beyond that, she developed deep bonds of friendship with men like Koufu who Shazak would eventually come from.

Still, even as she's lived, she's never forgotten nor given up her pursuit of either Isonash or the Blue Ghost, chasing them when their trails were warm and investigating them when they were cold. It was the heat of a lead after 250 years that brought her to King George City, where it seems both her enemies have come to dwell. Chiaru is a strong believer in Fate.

## **Opinions**

### **Principles**

**Unseelie**

* **Power:**
* **Passion:**
* **Change:**

**Seelie**

* **Honor:**
* **Love:**
* **Beauty:**

## **Meta-Data**

### **Theme Songs**

* **Main Theme:** 30 Seconds to Mars - Conquistador
* **Motivation:** Pentatonix - Run to You
* **Current Status:** Papa Roach - Warriors
* **Comeback Fight:** Sick Puppies - You're Going Down