Birth and Childhood

Eccentric from birth, Denrei grew up in the artist clan of Sashikami. A group of open-minded and progressive thinkers, Denrei was given plenty of space to develop himself as an individual. Sashikami believed that a clansman’s art was a manifestation of their true self, and it was part of their clan’s culture to discover and develop ones true self. As a young child, Denrei was already a highly curious individual, often getting himself into trouble due to his inquisitive and inventive nature. He would often find himself lost because he explored too much, stuck in places his parents needed to get him out of and knew more than he was supposed to know due to his curious nature.

Needless to say, the space his parents gave Denrei for personal development meant that unlike shinobi from more disciplined clans, Denrei was never forced to grow up faster than he needed to. His peers in the academy considered him childish and naive, and while he was never outright bullied (his natural charm prevented him from becoming a complete social outcast) he was always regarded as an eccentric, attributes that were regarded as being due to his clan.

Difference

Both in school and at home, Denrei revealed himself to be a prodigy of the arts of his clan. His techniques were considered advanced well beyond his years, both aesthetically and in terms of power. Because of this, he was praised and encouraged by his clan, and their pride in little Denrei made them blind for the dark traits that would emerge later.

Graduating from the academy when he was 12, Denrei was placed under the tutelage of the jounin Hatsuma Kin. Kin was a Fuuinjutsu expert as well as a highly knowledgeable shinobi, and her other two students were the taijutsu expert Habane Mokurou and the Genjutsu-using kunoichi Daida Kina. The three genin formed a highly effective team, with Mokurou’s taijutsu prowess allowed him to keep enemies at bay while Kina and Denrei could use long-ranged attacks to finish them off. Denrei’s abilities grew quickly under Kin’s guidance, in no small amount due to her sharing some of her Fuuinjutsu knowledge with the genin. As their missions became more serious, however, Kin began noticing disturbing traits in Denrei. He found killing very easily. Too easy as a matter of fact. Over several missions that had the team deal with minor threats such as bandits or low-level missing-nin, she began to notice Denrei’s eyes flare at the prospect of another chance to use his art for the act of spilling blood, or fill with disappointment whenever a wanted criminal would choose to come along peacefully. While she was aware that the ability to take a life was an important trait for a shinobi, she was concerned about the pleasure he seemed to take in it.

This reached its peak when, during a mission, he casually suggested using Mokurou as a sacrificial pawn. Despite Denrei’s eccentric nature, the trio of Genin had become good friends, or so they thought. When Kin voiced her concern with the Sashikami clan, her pleas seemed to fall on deaf ears. The clan was far too proud of Denrei, and mistook his tendencies for being a shinobi capable of the required ruthlessness. When the chuunin exams neared, Kin considered not enlisting Denrei because she was afraid, but the Sashikami clan complaining with the village council resulted in her enlisting the full team anyway in fear of negative consequences. He was promoted to chuunin at age 15.

Over his years as a chuunin, Denrei grew in skill and knowledge. Realizing his old genin friends and mentor seemed to shun him, he realized he was different. By observing the way ordinary people communicated and grew attached to one another, he became better at hiding his personality behind a mask of affability and dry wit. When leading teams he expressed concerns about his teammates and tried to get them all out alive not because he cared, but because he realized that it was what people expected of him.

Strangely enough, his abilities both in terms of jutsu and art, seemed to suffer. It was as if he had hit a writer’s block; the life of a “normal” person, even a shinobi, seemed so dull and uninspiring.

Loyalties Tested

One particular mission had a small group of chuunin and special jounin, led by a single jounin captain, infiltrate an enemy country. Boufuu had been at war with this country for quite some time, and Denrei’s teammates were filled with grudge towards the country for all the Boufuu-nin they had killed. Denrei, aged 21 and by then a special jounin, was emotionally detached, and because of this realized that both countries had suffered heavily because of the war, and that the enemy felt the same about Boufuu as Boufuu felt about them. To “normal” people it seemed logical, yet to Denrei, an apathetic observer, it made no sense. If people hated war, and both sides of the conflict hated it, then why did war exist? Moreover, how could shinobi from one side feel rage and blame the shinobi from the other side when they knew they had done the exact same thing?

Denrei finished the mission successfully and returned to Boufuu after a year. However, his loyalty was being tested. He had previously remained loyal to Boufuu because it was what people expected of him, but if people were capable of such foolishness maybe their expectations weren’t really worth considering. While on the outside Denrei remained the same laid-back, jovial, eccentric figure, on the inside something was stewing. And it wasn’t any good.

Denrei was promoted to jounin at the age of 24.

A Dark Secret:

Deciding people were not as good as they seemed, Denrei began focussing completely on his art. He still performed whatever mission the village gave him, but became reclusive outside of it. He became a very famous shinobi from Boufuu who was known to carry out his missions with deadly efficiency. Unbeknownst to him, Denrei had already attracted the attention of some shady figures who, at that point, regarded him more as a potential threat than a potential ally. But all that would change.

In order to perfect his art, he had began doing something he knew Boufuu could never find out. Part of what made his art so beautiful, so worthwhile, was the awe it evoked in people, and the shock and terror of someone being killed by it. He began kidnapping people from the settlements surrounding Boufuu to use as tests for his techniques. Later, he moved on to full-fledged shinobi that could put up a fight against his techniques in order to perfect their efficiency.

One would assume that a village filled with shinobi wasn’t the easiest place to keep a serial killing going without getting caught. It wasn’t. One day, Denrei was caught. As the shinobi snuck into a home in Boufuu, he was ambushed by a group of shinobi. Their looks of steely determination changed into looks of horror as they saw just who had been terrorizing the villages. Denrei recognized most of them. Friends, cousins, acquaintances. And coincidentally the Sashikami clans head was also there to personally catch the vicious killer.

The clan head. Denrei’s father.

“My son..”, the old man stammered.

“Father..”, Denrei said, at a loss of words.

“What have you done?!”

“I.... I....”

While he was arrested, the one thing that shocked Denrei the most, what had left him completely speechless, is how he felt absolutely nothing at all. For the first time, comparing the looks of anguish, despair, hatred and anger on the faces of his friends and family, on the face of his father, to his own blankness, he truly realized how different he truly was.

A New Path

Since Denrei had surrendered, knowing that fighting such a large number of jounin could only lead to his death, he was imprisoned. A seal was placed on him suppressing his chakra in order to keep him from performing jutsu, and he was sent to a high-security prison on the outskirts of the Steam Country. There he stayed for three years, until something unexpected happened.

One night, he woke up to find the door to his cell wide open. It was dark, but a distant chill beckoned him outside. On his way, he came across corpses of guards littered across the halls of the prison. When he finally arrived at the front door, the massive gate slightly ajar, he stepped outside into the cool air. A person in a dark cloak was waiting for him. The forces that had once deemed him a potential obstacle had heard of his crimes, and had decided to extend Denrei an invitation..