Rain Ninja Kawazoe Taiki

( Seriously, full view please )

I'm taking a break from the Kunoichi project because I just wanted to draw an original character again. And now that I'm part of the , I can once again recreate my own personal ninja!

( edited for actual background information that I thought up of in a couple of minutes )

Background Story
This ninja's name is Kawazoe Taiki, a 22 year old genin from the Village of the Hidden Mist, an orphan from the Earth Country during the Ninja Wars (similar to how Kabuto was orphaned).

Picked up and raised by the Kawazoe family who practice Sasori no Ken (scorpion fist) in the Hidden Rain, Taiki found himself fit to live a lifestyle as a shinobi. Sasori no ken is no easy task to master (kinda like the jyuuken that the Hyuga clan uses, in terms of difficulty) as chakra control must become more than second nature to the user. Interesting enough, when Taiki was found by his foster father, Taiki was stung by a scorpion native to the Earth Country by the Hidden Rain. This particular species has a poison that increases the chakra of the victim momentarily, with a side effect that can either completely drain or kill the victim. Because of his age (he was 6) and his size, death by the venom was imminent. Since medical shinobi were not widespread in the Hidden Rain, the Kawozoe drained half of Taiki's blood and replaced it with an anti-venom/blood mixture and implanted the scorpion's poison gland in his body to help take in the venom they could not extract. The result was a success and somehow allowed Taiki to extract poison out of his system through his pores, which has a negative effect on a victim's chakra flow, yet when used, has a less significant effect on himself as well with both stamina and chakra when used.

As for training in Sasori no Ken, it generally takes 10-15 years before one can master the art, which includes both unique forms of taijutsu and kenjutsu. Sasori no Ken is a well rounded art, founded on the basis of confusion and partial to total paralysis of the enemy. Genjutsu is highly used in this form of fighting, especially during hand to hand combat. The average Sasori no Ken user can perform Genjutsu while in the middle of a taijutsu move, ranging from appearing like a scorpion while charging to making the user believe that they have been poisoned. How is this possible you might ask? Well, their taijutsu incorporates handseals as their attacks. One might think that would ruin a shinobi's hands, but due to strenuous training, their hands become very rigid and can grip many things with great force, like a scorpion's claw. As for their kenjutsu, each trainee must first become familiar with a katana. Once that is complete, he must break his katana with his/her hands, then use his/her chakra to control, merge, split, and attack with the sword. A Sasori no ken user is not allowed to join the Hidden Rain shinobis until they have mastered the art, thus a majority of Kawazoe nins began at the late teens in their shinobi career. When a shinobi graduates masters the Sasori no Ken, he/she receives a tatoo that is similar to Taiki's on his right shoulder which personifies a scorpion.

As a Kawazoe nin, Taiki started his shinobi career late at the age of 7 1/2. Taiki was no prodigy in the beginning, as his venom played as both a positive and negative handicap. Similar to Sakura, but in no way in terms of power, Taiki could mold chakra very well, but his stamina was very low due to the adverse effects of the venom flowing through his body. In his teens, when he began kenjutsu, puberty became a very powerful factor in his growth. In the beginning, he would consistently hurt himself due to the lack of chakra forming when practicing the broken swords. Thus, if his body is shown, he has many scars from those days. Once he hit the late teens, his body finally became used to the venom and the scorpion gland implanted in himself. Taiki learned how to manipulate the gland to his liking and has finally become second nature. He quickly rose to the top and was able to gain much strength from his painstaking handicap, eventually becoming a Genin at the age of 20. The only thing that bothers him is the fact that he will more likely die sooner than his comrades due to the negative effects of the poison to his body. Only time will tell.

Jutsus and Skills
His special skill is "kenjutsu no sasori," the scorpion sword arts. He is given two broken blades and uses chakra to either form them into their original shape, use as a type of whip (i.e. Ivy from Soul Calibur), or act like shuriken towards foes.

As for the chains with the needle tips at the end, it is used for "Ninpo: Papiri no Sasori," which is roughly translated to "Scorpion's Sting." Now it may not look special, but what it does is help Taiki transfer a form of poison that runs through his body and is amplified with Chakra. This attack decreases and sometimes destroys the ability to form Chakra in the victim, obviously rendering him/her incapable of fighting.

That was a hell of a long bio... wow.

As for the style, I changed up my shading a little bit just to see how it would look like. He is also heavily influenced by my characters in ragnarok online and Kyuzo from Samurai 7. I tried to break away from cel-shading for just a second, and in all honesty, I like the results. You might end up seeing more pics of Taiki more often!

And as to how I got the ninja's name, I went to this japanese name generator right here, [link] ! You just type in your real name and BOOM, out comes your name in Japanese (well obviously not literally). From what it told me, my name, or rather my ninja's name means "radiance by the riverside." Sounds good to me!

Anyways, I hope y'all like it!