Tsoi

Name: Tsoi Kobayashi
Profession: “Wandering Ally of Justice” (Actually just a Rurouni)
Height: 5’2
Likes: Swordsmanship, training, good spars, diligence, cooking, her grandparents
Dislikes: Liars, criminals, slackers, people not taking her seriously, mercenaries, creeps, certain relatives
Hobbies: Seeking out injustice, making origami, reading, meditating, sword and martial arts training, preparing meals
Values: Honor, justice, defending the weak

Personality
Tsoi is a very stern girl with a passion for upholding her views of justice and harbors an abundance of pride. She conducts herself in the waning teachings of bushido, hoping to impart the wisdom she had bestowed upon her as a child. The young rurouni actively seeks out misdeeds and signs of crime wherever she visits and makes it her mission to purge as much of it as possible.

A stern believer in maintaining peace and prosperity, Tsoi considers herself a champion for those in need who have had their pleas for help ignored. A part of her hopes to someday find a lead on the person who took her arm, under the assumption that they won’t be able to resist committing another crime for her to sniff out eventually.

Though a teenager, Tsoi considers herself an adult and strives to carry herself as one. This doesn’t always work to her favor. Despite her best efforts, due to her young age Tsoi often comes across situations she doesn’t fully understand or comprehend. At times, her inherent girlishness she suppresses shines through.

Her long, luscious raven hair is a point of pride for Tsoi, but keeping it down is something she prefers to avoid. The long locks, when brushed up against her back and neck, sometimes elicit a distraction and response she’d rather not deal with. Instead, she keeps it in twintails.

[Hairpin Accessory]

Physical Prowess
Tsoi is highly proficient in the use of blades, namely the katana. Originally left-handed, the up and coming girl’s loss of the limb set her back severely. She retrained herself with her right arm until she eventually received a prosthetic limb.

The use of a fake arm took a lot of getting used to. She continued to focus on retraining herself with using her right arm to wield her blades singlehandedly, and slowly eased herself back into using a two-handed style. Though the prosthetic limb would, in theory, provide swifter single-handed strikes, her accuracy would be slightly offset – something Tsoi would prefer to avoid.

Her small stature gets in her way at times, much to her vexation.

 

Marionette Arm
A mixture of magic and science, the current model of the prosthetic Tsoi sports is equipped with limited tactile senses, though the sense of touch is far more subdued compared to her real flesh. Despite its modest appearance, due to its resilience, the prosthetic limb is more durable than Tsoi’s natural arm.

During her return trips back home, Tsoi has had the arm modified to match her growth. It requires periodic maintenance; Tsoi herself has picked up enough to be able to take care of it on her own, but any extensive repairs or maintenance requires an expert.

 

Backstory
Tsoi was raised by her grandparents, who taught her the bushido code and how to fight. She never met her parents, and her questions about them were always reflected.

Eventually relenting to her constant questioning, her grandparents took Tsoi aside one day and told her the truth. To her great shock, her parents were as far removed from honorable than she could have imagined; her mother, the daughter of her grandparents, had turned her back on the code. Taking up a life of crime instead after marrying a criminal named Sig Gotteiyama, she became corrupted further and further. Tsoi’s grandparents were able to spirit her away as an infant, wishing to at least spare one of their grandchildren from the terrible lifestyle.

Tsoi’s older sister, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. Raised from birth by their parents, Choi was as nasty as it came. When their mother Shion was on her deathbed, she revealed to Tsoi’s sister that her biggest regret was not being able to raise Tsoi. Choi swore that that she would personally track down Tsoi and her grandparents, to tie up any possible loose ends using their father’s resources without his knowledge.

Their father - a criminal unconnected to any of the samurai warrior business, - left the fighting and cultural aspects to his wife and daughter. As far as Sig was concerned, by that point, what happened, happened; he saw no further reason to go after the grandparents. In his own words: "What? They took our other daughter? Well, sure, that was pretty rough times back then, but it's been, what, at least a decade since then? There's other stuff we should be focusing on…”

After tracking them down, Choi tried to convince Tsoi to come along to meet with her real family, stating that their grandparents were the real monsters for stealing Tsoi away. Realizing that Choi intended to kill their grandparents, Tsoi refused, firmly telling Choi that she’d have to go through her to get to them.

They came to blows, and Tsoi lost her arm in the process. Her grandparents managed to fight off Choi, but they were both injured in the process. They managed to relocate somewhere else, out of the public eye, but Tsoi knew that her sister was still out there somewhere. Her grandparents helped her relearn how to fight with just one arm, until an old friend of theirs helped come up with a solution – a replacement limb. Despite the warmth and love of her grandparents, Tsoi couldn’t help but be disgusted by the corrupt nature of the rest of her family. Unsettled, she felt that they tainted the Kobayashi name, even if they went by Gotteiyama.

With her grandparents in better health and a better familiarity with her new prosthetic, a restless Tsoi finally left the safety of the remote monastery. Ashamed of her origins and wishing to bring her family to justice, Tsoi ventured out, dead-set on finding Choi and her father and doing everything in her power to prove to herself that she can’t possibly end up like them. The wayward samurai travels the lands, seeking out any and all trouble in her adventures. Once a year, Tsoi makes a trek back to her grandparents, to catch up with them and to get her prosthetic needs tended to.


Art by
It's about time I finally posted this.