Noriko

### Relatives

Tatsutaro (Real father, deceased) Sanada Swordmaster (Lawful father, deceased) Haruko (Mother, deceased) Tomoe (Cousin/Half-sister) Tajima (Cousin/Half-brother)

## Physical description

### Weapons

Katana

**Noriko** is a villain in the *Usagi Yojimbo* comics. She is Tomoe Ame's and Tajima's cousin but it's later revealed to be their half-sister as well because their mothers are sisters. She was sent by Lord Sanada to mine for gold in the Geishu clan's territory and enslaved numerous peasants to accomplish this goal, abusing them every step of the way, even going so far as to kill some as an example to increase production. Even before these events, her cruelty and bloodlust gave her the nickname "The Blood Princess".

Tomoe and Usagi happened upon her mining operation while on a mission for Lord Noriyuki. They were eventually discovered, and Noriko enslaved them in her plot and subjected them to her cruelty, especially Tomoe. Later, the two samurai were able to escape and lead a revolt with the enslaved peasants, which foiled Noriko's plans. She escaped into the mines, which were rigged to explode, but apparently survived. Since then, Noriko has vowed to dedicate her life to destroying Tomoe.

## History

Noriko was born an illegitimate child. Tomoe's real father, Tatsutaro, was in love with a young woman named Haruko, but had an arranged marriage with her older sister, and Haruko had one with the swordmaster of the Sanada clan. However, the two had an affair together which resulted in Noriko's birth. From a young age, Noriko knew she was the source of shame of her family for being the evidence of Tatsutaro and Haruko's infidelity and grew up virtually neglected of all love and affection. This resentment caused Noriko to develop very hostile and brutal tendencies from a young age, as seen when she killed a few tokage in her youth. This brutality would continue to grow and fester throughout Noriko's life.

Haruko hated her husband and after she died, the Sanada swordmaster sent Noriko off to live with Tomoe's family due to being unable to stand the sight of her. Tatsutaro's wife also hated Noriko for being a constant reminder of her husband's unfaithfulness. Even though Tatsutaro opened his home to Noriko and trained her alongside his legitimate children, he never accepted Noriko as his daughter and remained distant from her in order to save face.

While she was living with the Ame family, Noriko grew to envy Tomoe for being loved and accepted by their father and having a much better life than her. This jealousy eventually turned into deep hatred, and Noriko made it a point to brutally beat Tomoe during their sparring sessions, even when she conceded the match, and Noriko's sadism continued to grow. Years went by, and Noriko could no longer stand being shunned by either of the men she was supposed to call her father. She poisoned the Sanada swordmaster, then sought out her real father.

One night, she confronted Tatsutaro as he was returning from the dojo and demanded that he acknowledge her as his daughter; Tatsutaro refused. Accepting her would have dishonored both himself and the Sanada swordmaster, and besides that, he already had a daughter. Then he turned his back on Noriko and walked off. Noriko flew into a furious rage and stabbed her real father in the back, not even giving him a chance to draw his sword.

With both her fathers dead, Noriko developed a burning, undying hatred and resentment towards Tomoe. Her whole life, everyone loved Tomoe and gave her all the affection and care, whereas Noriko had been shunned and loathed since the day she was born. From then on Noriko blamed Tomoe for how terrible her life was, seeing her as the source of her misery.

### The Mother of Mountains

Over the years, Noriko obviously rose through the ranks of her clan, with her reputation as a swordswoman becoming infamous, and was deployed to the Geishu province to carry out a plot which would be of great assistance to Lord Hikiji. Noriko had poisoned the wells in villages of the southern Geishu province to fake an epidemic of plague in order to keep anyone away from her gold mining operations in the Mother of Mountains and provide a pretext for Sanada clan to invade on behalf of Lord Hikiji. When Usagi and Tomoe found Noriko organizing the mining, they spotted her beheading a slave that too tired to continue working. After her troops captured Usagi, Noriko sent one of her henchmen, known as "Orphan Maker" to fight him, but Usagi was able to gouge out one of his eyes. Noriko then tied Usagi to a wooden cross and threatened Tomoe that she would slowly cut-off each of his fingers if she didn't surrender herself. When Tomoe did arrive, Noriko decided to cut off Usagi's fingers anyway, just to be cruel, but Usagi closed his fist quickly enough to prevent them from being sliced off.

Noriko then enslaved Tomoe and Usagi, forcing them to work along with the other peasants. At first Tomoe defied Noriko orders, refusing to lift a finger to help Lord Sanada against the Geishu clain. Incensed, Noriko coldly killed a peasant woman, and threatened Tomoe that she would kill one worker after another until she obeyed. Not wanting to see anymore innocent people killed, Tomoe finally obeyed. Noriko scoffed Tomoe as a soft-hearted fool for having such compassion for a mere peasant.

After enslaving Usagi and Tomoe, Noriko invited Tomoe to share a drink with her, just so she could psychologically abuse Tomoe by telling her the long-hidden truth that they were in fact her half-sisters, not cousins, and that Noriko herself murdered their father. As an enraged Tomoe tried to attack her, Noriko kept dodging her strikes, telling her that Tatsutaro callously rejected her, motivating her to kill him, and said that his death was Tomoe's fault for being the one that their father favored. She punched Tomoe in the face and continued to belittle her before ordering her guards to bring her back to the slave pens.

A week later, after Tomoe and Usagi discovered the gold vein in the mountain, Noriko ordered the mine cleared out much to the suspicion of Tomoe and Usagi. She then ordered her slaves to start filling the mine with kegs of black powder. It turned out that the Sanada clan wanted to keep the gold a secret until Lord Hikiji invaded this land and gave it to Lord Sanada, then he could operate this mine openly to fill Lord Hikiji's war chest. Once the explosives were placed in the mine, Noriko fully intended to use the rest of explosives to kill the remaining workers so that there'd be no witnesses. However, she also intended to take Tomoe with her to Sanada territory because of some "special plans" she had in store for her, and decided to leave Usagi to the Orphan Maker's mercy.

That night, Usagi and Tomoe managed to open the slave pens, with the aid of the young samurai apprentice Motokazu, and quickly started a slave revolt with the freed peasants. When Noriko found out that the prisoners were free, she furiously charged after Tomoe, killing a few other peasants along the way. When she finally caught up to Tomoe, they clashed with each other for the first time in years. At this point, Tomoe was already exhausted from the battle and the days of harsh labor, giving Noriko the advantage. Seeing Tomoe in danger, Motokazu struck Noriko from behind with a staff, distracting the Blood Princess long enough for Tomoe to get the upper hand and disarm her. Before Tomoe could deliver the killing blow, Noriko pleaded for her life, calling Tomoe "sister" for the first time in her life. In that moment, Tomoe hesitated to finish her off, but it was all a ruse. Noriko kicked Tomoe away, mocking her a soft-hearted fool, but when she saw that she was surrounded, she fled into the mine. Unfortunately, Noriko didn't realize that the black powder had already been ignited, causing a cave-in that supposedly killed her.

It turned out that Noriko survived the cave-in somewhat but was trapped in the process. She managed to find a small crevice to crawl through, went down an underground stream and managed to drag herself ashore. The whole ordeal left Noriko barely alive. As Noriko struggled to keep herself from freezing to death, she was found herself by a pack of tokage that attacked her, seeing her as easy prey. Noriko fought off the pack and killed two of them with nothing but her bare hands and her teeth. She then found a way out of the tunnels, swearing revenge on Tomoe. This turned out to be a nightmare Tomoe was having, and despite the assurances that it was merely a dream, this wouldn't be the first time that Tomoe had dreamed something that actually happened, and the Blood Princess is still a real threat to her life.

## Personality

Noriko is without a doubt a product of her own unfortunate upbringing. Being raised without love and shown only resentment and shame made Noriko devoid of any sense of compassion, kindness or pity. The only praise she ever received growing up was in her sword training, which taught her to enjoy violence. Even from a young age, she exhibited a disturbed and violent behavior, as shown when she killed tokage as a child, and during her sparring matches with Tomoe when they were training together.

As an adult, Noriko is ruthless, cruel, deceitful, possessed of a black temper and has no morals or conscience whatsoever. The lives of others are meaningless to her and can kill anyone for any reason without feeling any kind of regret. She enjoys causing pain so much that she prefers to torture her enemies after they're defeated, rather than killing them quickly. These traits are greatly demonstrated towards Tomoe, when Noriko takes every chance she can get to make her half-sister feel as much pain as possible, and had a "special" death in mind for Tomoe.

Despite Noriko's callous and unfeeling nature, she also has a nasty temper much like a petulant child. When something is not going her way, she has a tendency to burst into an explosive rage and kill someone. This can happen over anything, such as when her blood father rejected Noriko and she simply snapped and killed him, or when she killed a random peasant because production at the mine was too slow.

Noriko also has no sense of honor and will gladly use deception whenever it suits her. Such as when she threatened to cut off Usagi's fingers if Tomoe didn't surrender herself, and still followed through with her threat even after Tomoe did as she demanded. Only Usagi's reflexes saved his sword hand. And when Tomoe had Noriko at her mercy, Noriko called out to her as "sister" to make her hesitate, but still mocked Tomoe as a soft-hearted fool for being so easily deceived.

To compound all her negative traits, Noriko is also deeply disgusted by notions of compassion, pity, and kindness.

## Fighting Style

Being raised and trained by two swordmasters, Noriko has studied the art of kenjutsu her whole life and exhibited immense talent for the sword from an early age. However, unlike other fencers, whose styles are meant to exemplify their teachings, Noriko's fighting style personifies her sadism. Almost all other swordfighters prefer to end their battles as quickly as possible, but Noriko likes to make the fight last so that she can torment her enemy. Her brutality is so extreme that for her, it's not enough to simply defeat an opponent, she has to humiliate them and make them suffer as much as possible. To Noriko, the sword is not the soul of a warrior, but a tool for which she can inflict pain on others.

Noriko also has a deep understanding of psychological warfare and uses it as well as a sword. She'll often intimidate people into submission through outright murder or torture. Noriko will also taunt and insult her opponents to mentally throw them off balance, so that Noriko can exploit their anger when they make a rash move. She mostly uses this tactic on Tomoe because of how easily angered she is by Noriko's villainous behavior.