Rakurai
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-- Rakurai Fyuujin
A dragon lady coming from the Wind Dragon clan, the granddaughter of the world's savior of beastmen and non-humans alike. She bears the title as his successor. An experienced martial artist with the help of her wind powers as boosts.
Back then, she came to the Crossroads to resolve her problems with bearing the successor title. Now she comes back, more happy and well-off; perhaps this time it's a vacation of sorts? Who knows.
Table of Contents
BackstoryThe daughter of Fyuujin of the East's youngest daughter, and essentially; his granddaughter. Her mother was exiled from the Wind Dragon clan, leaving with her father, so at a young age, she ended up being taken care of by other family members; including and especially her grandfather, Tatsumaki Fyuujin.
Rakurai and Tatsumaki's bond was inseparable; he was both her main bona fide parental figure and mentor. As per family tradition, each member has to learn martial arts as well as the clan's very own arts. Rakurai was a keen learner and student, especially under her grandfather's wings. Tatsumaki's skill and power were unmatched, so, she's truly learning the best from the best. However, unlike other clan members, she has an oddly small mana pool, they didn't think of it as much, but Tatsumaki adapted to her condition, teaching her more physical techniques.
However, despite this and all the love given by other members of the family, Rakurai couldn't help but feel like she's some sort of black sheep. In fact; ever since her parents left her when she was a toddler, it was like her subconscious already knew what had happened, her mother was the very first person to be exiled from the clan, after all. This resulted in her feeling self-conscious at times, which ended up making her a shy and meek girl when she stepped into school. There were times where, despite her golden-shining grades and status, she was bullied. Though this wasn't much of a problem as long as her grandfather was there for her, along with her high school boyfriend,
Well, until he passed away, from a terminal disease. And he elected her as her successor.
Her grandfather's death impacted her entire life, of course. Not only that, it was then revealed that her low mana pool came from the very same disease her grandfather had, it was just dormant. This, along with the loss of a monumental parental figure, led her mind to fall down a dark path. Her boyfriend wasn't helping either, as they then broke up. She shut herself off from her clan, thinking to herself that they only took care of her out of pity, she was the dark sheep after all.
Despite this, she tries to keep pushing herself and be better, as she really took being the official heir to her grandfather to heart. The journey of obtaining the title wasn't an easy one, her own naivete led her to a branch of mistakes and even near-death situations. And in this journey, that's where she met Aanir, where she was weary and even standoffish of him, but after knowing each other they grew closer; eventually getting together.
Once she has successfully became the heir of her grandfather, she became some sort of celebrity and political figure. She'd go further and step up more in the world, but following her family's principles of wanting peace, she opts to just have her very own private detective agency. Due to her status now, she's always busy, often handling cases both in paperwork and physically, going to multiple interviews, talking to other figures, et cetera. She tries to find fun in her work, but there's something that's always in the back of her mind, eating her away.
Why are people more focused on "Fyuujin of the East's successor", and not "Rakurai"? PersonalityAt a glance, one might see her as a bit quiet and maybe even scary because of her scarred appearance. But she's surprisingly quite expressive and friendly; she can hit up a conversation with ease and even take initiative sometimes. She rarely ever raises her voice, so usually she does sound quiet, especially compared to her more extroverted husband.
Her being raised by a family whose principles are based on peace and pacifism, if possible, has also made her selfless, as she often would throw herself to help others even if the situation was dangerous. This also resulted in her now having some sort of "mom friend" vibe; sometimes she'd even ask people if they'd eaten yet. And after the events of the last Crossroads Tournament, she has definitely matured as well.
Remnants of her old self can still be seen, however. She still has this mindset to constantly work and always move forward, to the point where the term 'workaholic' fits her best. This can lead to her sometimes being too stiff or in a rush, though lately she has been trying to relax herself down. People referring to her by her title can make her a little sensitive too; be careful on that. |
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Abilities
[Sky's Blessings]
The official, formal name of the Fyuujin family's inherited powers. To its core, it's essentially a straightforward wind-based ability with wind control and manifestation that can stretch to slight weather control with the potential to create hurricanes and tornadoes. While her family is blessed with plenty of mana and, thus, absolute control of [Sky's Blessings], she unfortunately has a small mana gauge, disallowing her to use her powers at their maximum devastation. However, she has learned to use it effectively in a way that accommodates both her body and her skills.
With this disadvantage, her utilization of her powers leans more on integrating them with her physical attacks, as opposed to only exclusively using it as ranged magic attacks. So if anything, you'd see more wind-boosted strikes as opposed to wind cutters. This does not mean she can't use magical attacks; she can, just in a very limited manner.
[Mastery-Level Martial Arts]
Rakurai comes from a family where one is taught martial arts at a young age. With that, she has learned and practiced many kinds of arts and forms, along with their local variants as well. With her immense experience in fighting and melee battles, with or without weapons, she is now at an absolute mastery level with her skills, proven by her quick reflexes, strength, control, temper, and speed. Despite learning many forms, she has come to use several of them, with Wing Chun as her main focus. Her moves and attacks are often very 'flowy' or even dance-like, a mark of a Fyuujin family member.
(Note!: If you want a good reference on how she fights, I recommend watching movies starred by Donnie Yen, especially Ip Man and Big Brother. Kung Fu Hustle (starred by Stephen Chow) is also a really good reference for more 'fantastical' fighting choreography.)
[Fyuujin Arts]
With how the Fyuujin family is oriented toward martial arts, they have made their own techniques, moves, and even forms and styles that utilize both their draconic abilities and skills. These are the "fantastical" and "mythical" sides of their combat skills, to the point where some even speculated that these moves were blessed by the heavenly deities and gods themselves. Here are a few of the techniques that Rakurai might use in the tournament:
- Fyuujin Arts: A Thousand Fists Blow - A technique where Rakurai can focus her energy on delivering a single swift palm strike, that results in an attack that feels and looks as if it is delivered by many fists.
- Fyuujin Arts: A Dragon's Hundred Tails - Same principle as A Thousand Fists Blow, but with her tail instead.
- Fyuujin Arts: Buddha's Palm - In this technique, Rakurai channels all of her focus and energy into her reached-out palm, where a burst of power and wind flows out of her hand in the shape of a gigantic palm, capable of destroying walls and grounds.
- Fyuujin Arts: Silent Petals - One of her more "softer" techniques, Rakurai spins and 'dances' to the skies with flowy yet silent coordinated kicks and tail strikes, where it'll eventually hits the target.
Strengths
[Accurate Speed and Agility]
Coming from a draconic family whose heirloom powers are based on wind, it's no surprise for Rakurai to adorn immense speed and agility skills, to the point where she has mastered controlling them. Rakurai uses this to her advantage, in that she can go from simple speed dashing and dodging, to utilizing the speed and impact of [Sky's Blessings] for an attack boost. These, paired with her experience in combat, have resulted in her being able to somewhat predict incoming attacks, though usually not beyond human levels.
[Martial Arts Proficiency]
Ever since she was a toddler, she was trained in martial arts under her grandfather and fell in love with it. Her grandfather, being a master of nearly every art set in the eastern lands, locked her into a path of mastering said arts too. Even after his death, she still went on and trained in her free time, with the assistance of the elders of her family as well as her older brother. With her going from training dummies to actual life-or-death combat experiences, multiple ones even, she built herself good muscle memory in battles, making her a force to be reckoned with.
At a young age, she was taught most eastern arts, from hand-to-hand to weaponry. However, as she gets older, she starts to incorporate MMA more from her older brother. She still focuses on Eastern arts, though.
[Level-headed]
After experiencing multiple fights and battles, she learned how to keep her thoughts and thinking stable and intact, as she also relies on her brains to fight. In a battle, she won't blindly start attacking immediately; she'll think of a strategy to approach said battle first instead. And even mid-battle, she wouldn't falter to taunts easily, or at least she tries to. She knows she's not all-powerful or anything, so she can't run in guns blazing that easily.
[Efficient Teamwork]
Her love and bond with Aanir is everlasting and, overall, really tight. This leads to good synchronization with Aanir in battles, with them having good teamwork together. This has come to the point where they can understand each other just through eye contact and facial expressions. With Rakurai being the main fighter, dishing out attacks, and Aanir being the support, supplying her with buffs and spells, them working together can be devastating.
Weaknesses
[Durable Glass Cannon]
As much as she is formidable and highly experienced in fighting, Rakurai's focus on skills and techniques, as well as her overall build, aren't fit to tank and take in heavy attacks. Unless she gets defensive buffs from Aanir, a super-powered punch from an opponent twice as big as her could stagger her greatly, and another gigantic super-powered punch from them could straight up be devastating for her. She can tank in flurry of attacks as well as shrug off minor injuries and even some broken bones, however.
[Airy, Flowy]
Her overall style in the martial arts and techniques she has learned is often more flashy and dance-like. While this can be a pretty sight to see, a more grounded and damage-focused style could pose an advantage over her, as her style would leave a lot of open areas to attack on. Wrestling, while she knows some basic moves, is an immediate advantage just because of that. Not only that, her experience in more western martial arts like boxing is surprisingly scarce, and that can put her in jeopardy.
[Low Mana Gauge]
While the events that happened in season 1 of the tournament have led her to have her dormant disease cast away, her mana pool stays quite low. This leaves her relying on physical attacks, where anything magic-related is mainly channeled through wind-boosts. This leads to her favoring close-quarters combat more, where long-ranged attacks can give her a hard time.
Despite all of this, she can still conjure magical attacks, especially with the aid of Aanir who can recover the mana she spent. Gusts of wind can be common to see from her; wind-cutters are more of an occasional sight where she can get visibly tired after conjuring some in a short time; and tornado summoning can lead to her coughing blood and fainting.
[Sensitivity]
As much as she tries her best to keep her head cool in battles, she's not immune to provocation and taunts that go too far. If an opponent can probe into her fears and anxieties or learn it for their own dirty tactics, Rakurai can be highly susceptible to it. Once she's in a state of fear and doubt, she ends up not being much of an effective fighter.
Trivia
- She's got a high tolerance for alcohol; she can down a lot of sake with zero problems.
- Despite her last name being spelled Fyuujin, it's actually pronounced Fuujin*.
- She does have a dragon form, however, it's unusable in the tournament, as of now.
- She's trying to quit smoking.
- Her left eye (her left) is blurry since its scarred, so she wears glasses whenever she's reading.
- Yes, Buddha's Palm is a reference to Kung Fu Hustle.
- The positions of her facial scars are nearly the same as those of the character Rakurai was somewhat inspired by, Gebura from Library of Ruina (This was genuinely a coincidence; I didn't even realize it until now.)
- Her voice claim is Riza Hawkeye from Fullmetal Alchemist
Gallery
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| Turn-around reference | Her personalized tag, tied around her neck and hid behind her suit. | Dragon motif on her tang suit |
Author's Notes
* = When I was writing her name down, I might've had Fuujin (the god of wind) and Ryuujin (dragon god) mixed up. Either that or I thought Fyuujin would be a viable name pronunciation, it's actually pronounced Fuujin, by the way. (Whoopsies!)