Profile

This is a role play journal for Hiko Seijuro.

Character History:

Hiko was raised in a small community in the mountains. His father co-owned a tiny dojo with his best friend, where they taught kendo. His mom became extremely ill, and died when Hiko was very young. It was so long ago now, he barely remembers her. His dad home schooled him and taught him the sword, until he was killed in an accident at a tournament. It was just one of those random tragic events, and Hiko, at eight, was crushed. His father's friend adopted him, and continued his education, both academic and in kendo. Many years before settling down and opening the dojo, his uncle-who-was-not-his-uncle had had to learn to survive in adverse conditions, due to civil unrest. Not trusting the current peace, he passed these skills on to Hiko, just in case.

As a teenager, Hiko excelled in kendo, and soon surpassed his uncle. They trained, and argued, and laughed, and were as close as any family. Ever since he was small, Hiko had been drawn to the sword, just as he was drawn to clay. There were no potters in their community, but Hiko still found natural clay deposits and more often than not, their windowsills were decorated with handbuilt clay animals and small, lumpy bowls drying in the sun.

Finally, when he had exhausted his uncle's knowledge of swordsmanship, and grew frustrated with his lack of knowledge regarding clay, he eventually left home for the nearest city and another teacher. This time a production potter who was willing to take on an apprentice. Hiko continued to practice kendo, and his uncle, while disappointed to lose the opportunity to pass on the dojo for the time being, was pleased his son had found a promising job. His uncle felt there would always be time to pass on the dojo later. After all, Hiko had plans to return home, continue work at the dojo, and open his own studio.

These plans were never realized. A couple years into Hiko's apprenticeship, the peace his uncle had never trusted broke spectacularly with the advent of a civil war. Filled with idealism and knowing he had skills that could be of use, Hiko enlisted with his chosen side, and entered hell. At first, things weren't so bad. Conditions were harsh, but he made friends, people to celebrate successes with and who were there to patch each other up when things went wrong. However, his skills stood out, and Hiko was soon chosen for a 'special project.' The project involved a narcotic intended to enhance natural ability. Again, for a while, things went well. Hiko reveled in the strength and stamina the drug provided. There was a sense of pride in being able to do so much for his side.

The drug, however, was not without side-effects. Not the least of which was a growing dependence. What had first been a thrill, a feeling he could do anything, became a need. He couldn't function without it. Then he noticed men who had been chosen earlier, who had taken the drug longer than he had, and Hiko knew what his fate would be: Insanity, then death. Some of his comrades died from overdose, others from adverse effects within their bodies. Others still by their own leaders when the drug rendered them uncontrollable.

Accepting his own mortality and realizing his eventual fate, Hiko began to cut back. He knew better than to go cold turkey; he had seen how that ended up. It was a difficult thing to hide his condition from the project leaders, and more than once Hiko slid back into formed habits. His resolve was cemented, though, when he learned that the focus of the project had shifted. Children. Research had concluded that children were able to handle the effects better, and "lasted longer" than their adult counterparts. Unfortunately, the end result was the same. By the time Hiko learned about the project's new direction, their movement's leaders had already found out about the atrocities. The project was to be forcibly shut down, all subjects, all researchers, all research erased. There was no way the movement could take power with such a blemish to their record.

Hiko, once a golden boy within their movement, soon found himself seriously ill, disillusioned, and on a hit list. While he had managed to cut back on the drug, he was still dependent on it, a fact that simultaneously disgusted him and filled him with apprehension. What if he was never free of this drug? With the closing of the lab, his only source would be gone. Sickened by his own weakness, but driven by practicality, he made a final, ditch-effort to secure the formula for the drug he'd been given. He infiltrated the lab, and ran into a small red-haired boy, no more than eight or nine, who was clearly a subject, like Hiko. To this day, Hiko has no idea why he felt such a strong connection to the boy. All he knows is that he was aware of the connection the moment he saw him, and that it went far deeper than simply a shared experience. Hiko didn't bother to try to find an explanation. In a snap decision, he grabbed the boy, a handful of the narcotic that had ruined their lives, and ran.

Knowing that the boy was even more dependent on the drug than he was, Hiko kept the kid with him, to help him with his dependency. Over time, Hiko dealt with his own addiction, but suffers from flashbacks and a constant need that, if allowed to grow, can take up all his attention. Kenshin was never able to completely come off the drug. Hiko believes it has to do with being introduced at such a young age.

Hiko eventually managed to reverse engineer the narcotic. After much trial and error, he figured out a slightly different formula for the drug that was less damaging to the boy. He had never been so thankful for the chemistry skills he had gained while formulating glazes with his teacher. The reformulated drug was not the ideal, but it would have to do, and it seemed to help Kenshin stay grounded and relatively healthy. At that point, that was all Hiko cared about.

Hiko and Kenshin continued a nomadic lifestyle, always moving to stay hidden from the movement's clean up crew. They weren't the only ones to have escaped, and they took refuge in the fact that the movement stayed very busy trying to track so many. Over time, Hiko drew on his own experiences as a child, and treated Kenshin as his own. They shared an odd dynamic cemented by traumatic experience, but family is family. Hiko taught Kenshin kendo, and home schooled him as well. Hiko did not share his uncle's patience, and Kenshin was not a star student. His idiot's tendency to wander, both figuratively and literally, remained a bone of contention between them.

Years passed, and Kenshin eventually wandered away for good, taking the reformulated drug and a copy of its recipe with him. Given their precarious position, and how hard it had been to hide two people, Hiko understood why his son had left. Hiko often called Kenshin an idiot, even if he wasn't around to hear it, and quietly made his way to New Meiji.

Without a baka deshi to babysit, Hiko figured he had wandered long enough, and chose a life of relative anonymity in the huge city. Surrounded by millions of people, Hiko moved into a small storefront building with an upstairs apartment in a thriving, working-class neighborhood. There, he opened the pottery studio he'd always wanted. In the interest of holding onto some anonymity, he adopted the alias Kakunoshin Ni'itsu.

In addition to the occasional sale of his work, he supports himself by taking on students and maintaining a modest retail space that caters to the needs of other ceramic artists in the city. The back half of his building has a large storage space that opens to an alley. There is enough space to continue practicing kendo, as well as storing his kiln and stock for the retail space. The alley provides access to a flow of information from the world beneath the city that has proved invaluable to a man who is both a veteran and a refugee, and who has never stopped looking for his idiot son.

Age: early 40's

Occupation: Potter

Family background: Mother deceased, father co-owned a dojo, also deceased. Adopted by is father's best friend and co-owner of the dojo.

Best and Worst memory: Hiko's best memory is also is worst. When Kenshin became old enough, he mercilessly pestered Hiko to teach him how to drive. And so, once Kenshin had been deemed worthy of driving without killing them both, Hiko allowed him to split driving shifts when they traveled. In theory, this was a marvelous idea that allowed Hiko a little time to nap or just stare out the window while they ate up miles. Kenshin's first shift ended up being his last. Careening down a mountainside with the speed and precision gained from years of swordsmanship, Kenshin grinned like a loon while Hiko gripped the overhead handle with one hand and clutched the divider between the seats hard enough to leave cracked dents in the plastic. Even while he prayed to gods he didn't even believe in to spare his miserable existence, one look at the joyful grin on Kenshin's face, almost made everything they been through and sacrificed worthwhile. Almost. Afterward, as Hiko forbade Kenshin to ever get behind the wheel of any car he owned, and Kenshin snickered and needled him for weeks over the dents in the divider, Hiko never forgot the look of pure joy on Kenshin's face that day. Or the sheer terror, such as he had never known, as he willingly put his life in another's hands.

Hobby: Hiko doesn't have a hobby. Kendo and ceramics, two endeavors that most people consider hobbies, are Hiko's life. He wouldn't be who he is without either.

Cellphone color: Red. A very flamboyant, shiny red. Hiko also has a small, somewhat worn, Luck Cat cellphone charm that has dangled from every phone he's owned since taking up company with a certain idiot. It might have come out of one of those cheap vending machines that children love, and was possibly gifted to him by a particular red-haired child. But Hiko will never tell.

Does Hiko watch TV?: Not really. He has a TV, but never bothered with cable, and simply makes do with rabbit ears. He watches the news and picks apart the reports, discerning lies from truth, and generally being alternately amused or disgusted by how stories are spun to suit the needs of those in power. On the nights he can't sleep, which are more than he'd care to admit, he'll take in whatever late-night movie happens to be on. He has a particular fondness for noir films.