Sesshou Tessai

NAME: Sesshou Tessai
AGE: 44
GENDER: Male
VILLAGE: Konohagakure no Sato
RANK: Jonin

[None Classified]

NATURE MANIPULATION:

[Raiton]
[Suiton]
[tertiary]

RELATIONS: Unknown

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Tessai makes exceptional use of his height and weight. Standing seventy-four inches tall and weighing two hundred and ninety-five pounds often means he is the largest person in the room. And, while he is not always the most muscular shinobi in the scroll, the amount of people who can physically dominate him are few and far between.

MENTALITY: Described as the type of person who values privacy, Tessai does not interact with people on a regular basis and will often seek to avoid the presence of others. Some have accused Tessai of exhibiting something akin to sadistic personality disorder but no one has spent sufficient time with him to properly diagnose this pathology.

BIOGRAPHY: Tessai was born into a clan of pacifists, his parents among the most ardent, and quickly found his heritage to be a burden as he fancied himself a warrior prince. He made numerous enemies as an academy student because of his brash talk and unruly behavior, but he had not yet physically matured so he was not taken seriously by those around him. He was trained in the knowledge of combat during the first shinobi war and found that it was much different than the stories he'd grown up hearing. It was much more to his liking than his parents had lead him to believe which drove him to expand his killing skills with every opportunity. Once, on a mission to defend wealthy businessman's son, the boy's slight frame was taken advantage of by disguising him as a maiden in the service of the young inheritor which allowed Tessai to remain nearby while remaining undetected. No one, not even the young man he was protecting, knew of the subterfuge and so when his own brothers attempted to take his life it was Tessai who brutally cut them down. His orders were to leave at least one attacker alive for questioning but when the time came to turn them over it was found that he'd slaughtered five of the men already, and the sixth had gone made due to an intense session of torture he'd been subjected to over several hours.

Tessai even went so far as challenging his peers to fight him and, for a time, things progressed without incident. But an error in judgment resulted in a particularly controversial death and Tessai was encouraged to make himself sparse. Already believing himself to be invincible, Tessai obtained permission to leave the village with Sennin status and set off to become a man of legend. His plan was cut short when he was accosted by a band of nukenin and almost murdered less than a week after leaving Konoha. He was found and cared for by an old monk who had made his home in a temple high in the mountains of Areno. Months passed before Tessai was strong enough to reclaim his status as a shinobi but an unspoken agreement had been reached, and Tessai stayed in the wilderness to learn what he could from the nameless samaritan. It took ten years to convince the once deluded warrior prince that he knew nothing of true combat, but from the first day of his training he did not dismiss a single lesson or fail to execute even one of his sensei's demands. The first portion of his instruction was geared toward retraining his senses; Tessai was forced to live without each of his five senses for an entire year so that the others could become accustomed to working independently of them. Through this process, he laid a foundation for greater spatial awareness and gained an advantage in situations where he was deprived of one or more of his senses.

Another aspect of his training was building both speed and strength through a daily regiment of unorthodox training sessions. The monk realized that Tessai's bone structure could support much greater muscle mass and so weight training was the only option. A supreme knowledge of the body's anatomical layout guided the old man's teachings and allowed Tessai to learn how to use the entirety of his musculature at once instead of relying on a select grouping for any one task. In addition to weight lifting, Tessai was also loaded down with increasingly greater amounts of weight and forced to move at or as close to his top speed at all times. He completely abandoned the principle of walking and focused on augmenting his instantaneous maximum speed. After more than ten years of continually increasing his efforts in these areas it finally dawned on Tessai that he had crafted the body he had always desired. His master began giving him small tasks to do so that they could live more comfortably and Tessai was only too grateful to oblige.

The missions were simple at first and gave Tessai the feeling that he was finally repaying the man who had saved his life and done so much for him after the fact. The first time Tessai began to doubt was when his master instructed him to retrieve an item that had been stolen from the temple years ago. Upon arriving at another temple in the next prefecture, he was greeted by armed men who seemed bore an innate hostility to the mark of the old monk which Tessai had been asked to inscribe on his garments. The men spoke a foreign language so no real communication could be had but when one them tried to slice Tessai open conversation was no longer sought. Using the training he'd received from the old man allowed him to dispatch his opponents without resorting to the use of chakra, and Tessai ransacked the temple until he found the ornately bejeweled vessel he'd been sent to find. It was so strange that something so valuable would belong to the old man, when nothing in their temple was worth more than a few ryo, but Tessai did as he was asked and returned in short order.

The missions became almost entirely centered on regaining some lost treasure or dealing with a long overlooked enemy that resided in a foreign land. Eventually it all became too much for Tessai to rationalize and compartmentalize it all away and he decided to question his master thoroughly when he returned to the temple. His rush to have his answers brought him back ahead of schedule one evening and to his shock he found his master speaking with the same group of men that had almost ended his life all those years ago. It seemed they worked for the old man, waylaying shinobi and the errant samurai but always leaving just enough life in them for the monk to make his miraculous rescues. They were then brainwashed with a mixture of herbs they were given during their recovery that clouded their minds and instilled a sense of loyalty to their caregiver. But in light of the facts that loyalty was quickly dispelled and with no remorse whatsover Tessai killed the old man and then turned his rage on the bandits. They scattered out of the temple and left Tessai alone in the storehouse of stolen goods. He would spend years returning all he'd taken from whoever it had come from while at the same time tracking those who'd escaped the onslaught at the temple.

Devoid of his chemically induced captivity, and after his quest of atonement had ended, Tessai was once again witnessed wearing his hitai-ate within the boundaries of Konohagakure no Sato and was able to become an asset right away. Once again, he was given the meager assignment of protecting Hi no Kuni's daimyo. Not long after the disappearance of the Raikage, a small council of the feudal lords was called to discuss the growing tensions in between the countries and Tessai found himself earning his keep on the protection detail. The first day of the conference had yet to reach completion when Tessai overheard a conversation between the Jonin assigned to the daimyo's from Kami and Tsuchi no Kuni. The two had actually met decades ago when they themselves were fighting on the same side of a skirmish with Konoha and, through a fantastical set of circumstances, they had managed to remain allies throughout their lives. Both were aged and held deep grudges against Konohagakure for losses they had each suffered in previous conflicts, and the two men had crafted a plot to bring about their revenge on the "anniversary" of their original meeting. Each man had secretly and thoroughly indoctrinated their respective pupils into a blind hatred of all things dealing with Konoha and were planning on killing the Leaf's daimyo on the final evening of the conference.

Sesshou thought about ending them as soon as he heard them speaking of the grand scheme but he was conscious of the fact that simply killing them might leave Konoha vulnerable to reproach, if no further proof could be found. So he allowed the men to continue to plot until such a time as he could locate the evidence he needed. Fortunately, the killers found no opportunity to enact their plan while Tessai was collecting his intel and once he had what he needed he anonymously arranged for it to be sent to the Hokage, Tsuchikage, and the acting Raikage. On the last day of the conference, and at the very last moment, the two assassins launched their offensive as the adjourning meeting was drawing to a close. Tessai alone flew into action before anyone else could even discern what was happening and cleaved every one of the assassins in twain . Due to the panic and confusion, the original Jonin who had come up with the plot were able to sway some others within the group to their cause by accusing Konoha of wrong doing and Tessai, ever the picture of solemn behavior, stoically denied nothing.

Three Jonin joined with the two hate mongers and proceeded to attack Tessai all at once but the quiet giant used the overwhelming odds to his favor. By positioning himself in just the right spots he made it impossible for more than two of the other shinobi to attack him in a single moment. He initially showed further skill by not attempting to outmatch them in terms of aggression but, instead, capitalized on their exaggerated movements and wasted energy by only countering attacks with clinical precision. It happened so quickly that many of the witnesses believed Tessai was being herded into a corner but he was actually maiming his enemies in critical areas so as to limit their fighting potential. When he was satisfied that none of them had the skill to contend with their injuries without going on the defensive it was then that Tessai went on a rampage that would become known as the "Shoumon Koubou" {Open Palmed Offensive}. After swapping his kunai for Taijutsu techniques featuring a series of ingenious nerve ending attacks, which left his attackers immobilized, Tessai branded four of the men with an unknown, barehanded style. Their faces were horribly disfigured, as he would later attest, so they could live with the shame of their failure until proper judgment could be rendered.

The last man, however, was given a chance to surrender since he had really only been following his friend innocently into the fray to protect him. Tessai declared aloud that Konoha was no longer in the business of making war and that justice, mercy, and compassion reigned in Konohagakure no Sato. This was merely a tool used to win the crowd's minds for he then turned to the man and gestured, without anyone else seeing, to his dead comrade. No one saw the rampant glee on Tessai's face except for the man and he simply could not control his emotions and so he rushed the provocateur in a blind rage. In his weakened state, it would have been easy for Tessai to avoid the man's ragged sword strikes but he needed an excuse. With nigh imperceptible timing, he allowed himself to be slashed across the bridge of his nose though it was merely a superficial injury which had no chance of doing any real damage. And so, even more loudly than before, Tessai exclaimed that no further acts of "unmitigated violence" would be tolerated and he beheaded the man in one, fell swoop. The daimyo's were astounded and news spread of the man who defeated five Jonin while barely sustaining a single scratch and, when conclusive evidence of the plot was revealed by the separate Kages, Tessai become untouchable as far as any consequences went. Very little, if anything, was ever uncovered about his time away from the village which makes him somewhat of a mysterious figure but he was allowed to move through the ranks of his village without harassment. He became a Tokubetsu Jōnin and developed quite a talent for interrogation, torture and assassination so he was made a full-fledged Jonin in very short order.