Name: Taro Tachibana
Race: Human (Losenji)
Affiliation: The Elysian Vanguard
Age: 21
Height: 5'9" (175 cm)
Weight: 138 lbs (62.5 kg)
Taro is a slender-built young man of middling height, his most standout features being his head of luxuriously long, light blonde hair and his striking golden eyes. Though not especially broad shouldered, he is athletically built - with a wiry strength borne of long practice with swords and martial arts both.
Most often seen with a mischievous glint in his eye and a smug smirk, despite his overall cheerful and good-humoured attitude, a keen observer would note that his smile often doesn't reach his eyes, behind which lurk a great many unpleasant memories.
Taro wears dark colours for the most part, his light armor black and gold, which contrast his fairer complexion. At his side near-constantly is a smoky, strange-looking spirit that resembles a lion's mane with a menacing mask, a minor manifestation of the dark spirit that clings to him.
On the surface, Taro is a snarky, smarmy son of a bitch with a dark joke for every inappropriate situation and a habit of not taking things seriously. He far from epitomises the "heroic warrior" that the Vanguard represents by his off-duty behaviour, and seems an oddity surrounded as he is by people who would appear far more dedicated to the cause.
However, beneath this laid-back and irreverent persona, Taro is a troubled young man who wants nothing more than to do enough good in the world to outweigh his past misdeeds. His way of acting is a mask constructed to distract him from the darker thoughts that swirl within him, and keep his spirits high. He is, in reality, devoted and driven to live up to the expectations of redemption placed upon him by those in the Vanguard that gave him a second chance. When it comes down to the wire, Taro is reliable, disciplined and strong-of-will - and it's those attributes that the Wardens who have worked with him for longer come to appreciate.
That is not to say there isn't still a darkness to him, one that was nurtured by his cursed blade and that he fights to keep in check. Though his heart is good, so too is it tied to a being that wants nothing more than to draw him away from the light so that it might once more sew chaos unhindered.
The cursed katana Taro wields, Kuroakuma, contains the spirit of a powerful yokai of darkness, chaos and misfortune for which it is named. The blade itself is wreathed in shadows that assail creatures with necrotic energy on contact, and is capable of slicing through most mundane substances with ease. Taro can unleash his power directly through the weapon as well, empowering its strikes with raw magic or even causing a shade of Kuroakuma itself to emerge from it to assail foes.
Beyond these capabilities, Kuroakuma is a yokai that feeds off of the darkness in humans and, in a reciprocal loop, influences them to become darker still. Taro currently has control of the spirit, strong enough of will to temper his own darker emotions to the point where the spirit is too weak to influence him or those around him, and is instead bound to his will.
His connection with the blade, and the pact he forged with it when he first took it from its shrine, has granted him an array of other powers as well. These include but are not strictly limited to: curses of ill luck, paralysis and other debilitating ailments, creating and seeing through utter darkness, manifesting aspects of the yokai in his own body, concealing himself and his spiritual presence, disrupting the magic of others through chaotic feedback, conjuring shadowy manifestations of the yokai spirit to aid him in combat, and lashing out with raw unfiltered spiritual power in the form of magical projectiles. His body is also enhanced, enabling him to move faster, strike harder, and receive more damage than a human would be capable of, without suffering ill consequences.
Beyond this supernatural ability, Taro is a talented swordsman and martial artist who has long been dedicated to his training of both mind and body. It is only in more recent years that he has been forced to put these talents more into practice, and though he has excelled, he still lacks a little in experience compared to his more veteran comrades.
Taro was born the son of a Losenyu shrine priestess, at a shrine dedicated to protecting a cursed sword named Kuroakuma. His father was absent -- having left his mother before he was born, not wishing to be pinned to the simple shrine lifestyle by a child -- and he had no siblings, but there were other priests and priestesses at the shrine, and so he was part of what felt like a whole and happy family nonetheless.
Life was simple for a long time: Kuroakuma was not an especially famous blade despite its curse, and so they were not troubled overly by people seeking to study it, or to take the dangerous weapon for themselves.
The blade was named thus for the yokai that dwelled within it, a dark demon of shadow, chaos, and ill omen that had once tormented the nearby village, bringing about a rise in sickness and conflict by its mere presence. An exorcist named Saizo sought to banish the spirit, but it was tricksy and evasive, and avoided direct confrontation. In the end, Saizo tricked it by declaring loudly that he intended to seek an honourable duel with his rival using the blade he carried, which was a symbol of honour. Kuroakuma thought to interfere with the duel by possessing the sword and causing the exorcist to act dishonourably in the fight, but Saizo had anticipated this, and prepared a binding spell. Thusly, Kuroakuma was trapped within the sword, and the village built a shrine to guard it, so that the yokai might never escape.
Taro's life changed when he was sixteen, when bandits - having heard the legend of the sword in the village - sought to take it. They attacked the shrine, killing those priests that tried to oppose them, and burned it. In a desperate bid to protect his family, Taro took up the cursed blade himself and begged the yokai within for aid. Kuroakuma offered him a deal: 'Let me manifest through you and bring ill fortune and chaos to your enemies, and I will give you the power you need'.
Taro agreed, and the yokai bonded with him, entwining itself with his soul. In freeing the yokai, however, so too did Taro allow it to gain influence over him. In the immediate aftermath of the binding, Kuroakuma took control of his body. Although it killed the bandits, it also slew a number of the shrine priests, including Taro's mother and sister, before he was able to wrestle back control.
When he did regain control, Taro fled the shrine, devastated with what he'd done and fleeing the attempts of the priests to exact justice on him.
Soon after leaving home, Taro fell in with a group of mercenaries named the Black Orchid. Kuroakuma's presence in him had tilted his moral compass somewhat, so he turned a blind eye to the group's darker dealings, concerning himself only with earning the money he needed to survive. And in turn, this darkening fed Kuroakuma's strength, allowing the spirit to begin to influence this group to darker and darker acts.
This lasted for two years, until last year, the group came into conflict with a member of the Elysian Vanguard - after word had reached them of the mercenaries in possession of a powerful dark artefact. By this point, although Taro remained in Kuroakuma's grip, the young man had grown more and more guilty and regretful over the things he was doing, and the spirit's grip was weakening the more he fought back against it.
And so when Adriaan, the Vanguard member who had been sent to retrieve the sword, came into conflict with him and the other mercenaries, it was a battle fought on multiple fronts: Adriaan against Taro and the mercenaries, and Taro against Kuroakuma. Eventually, with Adriaan's coaching, Taro was able to wrest control of himself back in full - and in turn freeing the other mercenaries.
Realising that the sword's power hinged on the darkness of its wielder, and that it could not be separated from Taro easily, Adriaan brought Taro back to Nasazura's Rest, where it was decided that he would be allowed to join the Vanguard himself: to nurture the goodness in him and keep his darkness from becoming such that Kuroakuma could take back control.
Taro himself was grateful for a chance at redemption, still haunted by the things he'd done, and since then has been a loyal member of the Vanguard - albeit one with a dark sense of humour and a slightly unsettling fighting style, occasionally involving a dark spirit leaping from his blade to consume his foes.