The Shifting Soul
Sado Yasutora was born to a roving band of barbarians who called themselves goliath due to their sheer size. They were called the herd of the shifting soul. They lived on the fringes of society due to their uncontrollable fits of rage and unbridled and nearly unstoppable tendency for destruction. It was common place to hear stories of one lone goliath demolishing entire settlements in berserker like rages. During these fits of madness the body would twist and warp into beastly or demonic forms causing society to reject and revere them as monsters or beasts. His father was killed in one such fit of rage, and his mother a human woman from civilized society died in child birth leaving Sado to be raised as an orphan in the tribe. Her body was too fragile and meek to carry even a half blooded goliath to term. This meant he would be raised as a warrior from birth, as he had no parents to raise him. From a very young age he was taught to be violent, abrasive, competitive, self-reliant, and most of all never complacent instilling a constant sense of boredom in him. He was taught how to fight early and was beaten often as his tribe held no sympathy for the weak or small. He learned to fight against individuals larger than him and stronger than him exploiting their weaknesses be they psychological or physical. During his adolescence he was a runt who became known among his tribe as the wordsmith. This was because he could set off nearly anyone in the tribe with a string of insults or words unleashing their more predictive beastly nature. He would then exploit their emotions to out maneuver and out think his opponent. Competitiveness was everything to the shifting soul. Everyone wanted to out do those around them but most of all they wanted to out do themselves. Being better, stronger and even at times smarter than your opponents or past self was always the goal.
The Lost Souls
Around his fifteenth year Sado had became known among his tribe as an honorable and talented individual his strength and determination far eclipsing his small stature. His charisma and way with words made it easy to sway hearts and minds in the tribe. Even those he insulted and goaded in combat were his friends mere moments after the fighting stopped willing to die for him. However comparatively to his kin he was still a runt small but cunning. He was considered small in goliath society where their massive frames ranged from seven to ten feet tall being a measly six foot, two, at fifteen where the usual goliath was at minimum seven feet tall. This difference in size made him larger than the humans of civilized society but smaller than his brethren who never let him forget he was merely a half-blood.
It was the middle of summer the heat in the mountains was staggering and Sado was placed on watcher duty. His job was to watch the outskirts of the ever moving camp. It had been a week of watcher duty. He was day dreaming looking to the sky thinking up what to say in his next battle. He wasn't paying attention as a group of shinobi snuck into the camp of souls. He didn't even notice until the screams. Several valiant goliath warriors and women killed before they could react. The goliath were confrontational and they were aggressive but due to this they weren't well versed in stealth combat. They didn't expect a mercenary band of shinobi to sneak in and stab them in the back before they could react. Claymore warriors they were called, there were tales of them cannibalizing his people stealing away children to eat like veal. Sado rushed into the camp only to find several dead goliath warriors missing their left ear, some with large pieces of flesh and bone just gone from their body, mere proof of their work. The chieftain was furious and the tribe as a whole was as well. They needed a scapegoat someone to blame for this atrocity. Who better than the weak, fragile, wordsmith who was supposed to be watching their perimeter. Society had placed a bounty on any member of the herd of the shifting soul they were tired of their wanton destruction. Each ear worth one thousand ryo.
The Shattered Soul
"Among goliaths, any adult who can’t contribute to the tribe is expelled. A lone goliath has little chance of survival, especially an older or weaker one. Goliaths have little pity for adults who can’t take care of themselves, though a sick or injured individual is treated, as a result of the goliath concept of fair play. A permanently injured goliath is still expected to pull his or her weight in the tribe. Typically, such a goliath dies attempting to keep up, or the goliath slips away in the night to seek the cold will of fate."
His complacency cost him dearly. Beaten nearly to death, left bloodied and broken he was banished by the chieftain and the tribe left behind as they moved on. Shunned and ostracized from his home he left the mountainous region as he traveled to more wooded areas orbiting close to the edges of civilized society. He had nowhere to go and no one to turn to so he became a sell-sword his massive physique and statue helped him obtain jobs no one asked his age they assumed he was grown. In reality he started working as a mercenary at the age of fifteen. Hired muscle, violent killings, a growing misanthropy and hate for shinobi he began to absorb the teachings of civilized society and the shinobi he hated. He picked it all up so easily technology, stealth, ninjutsu. He used it all to make his lone journey more tolerable. He believed himself an exile who deserved no sympathy due to his early life thus he didn't try to form new connections. Instead he drowned his sorrows and impulses in ale, women and combat. At heart Sado was a creature of impulse. He killed, he fought, he slept, he ate, he did it all again the next day. Working alongside other sell swords he slowly began to pick up their jutsu learning how to mimic them. For two years he did this his body becoming covered in large scars and pockmarks.
The Lone Soul
After two years of sell sword work he had obtained a fair amount of money he decided to spend it on knowledge. A wordsmith needed to be smarter than the rest so he bought himself some advanced training. He paid whoever would teach him ninjutsu any form of it. He learned the basics quickly, and built off of that. He learned poison release and medical ninjutsu. He needed to be able to heal himself if he wanted to be a better mercenary. He took a few classes and learned some chemistry learning how to create medicine and the like. He trained in meditation learning how to control his more feral nature as he began to work towards perfecting his past. He learned more about the shifting soul that resided in him. It wasn't mystical or magical like he was taught it was a biological reaction his body had to an unseen force called Natural Energy. He learned how to control his rage and learned an art called Sage Mode. He fell in with a group named Golden Sabbath and began traveling with them.
On a Gathering Storm of Souls
"Trust and honor are the key aspects of most goliaths. These traditions of honor and trust meant that goliaths tended to be good overall. This combined with their competitive nature often led goliaths to valorous heroics. Goliaths are also notably daring and fearless. Feats of physical strength and agility, like jumping chasms or climbing cliffs, held no fear for goliaths. Goliaths are naturally curious beings and love to explore. Their goliath maxim "today's rival is tomorrow's teammate" lead them to hold few grudges and seek combat to share emotion."
After traveling with Vegeta a member of the Golden Sabbath they decided to place down roots. The first land they stopped at was called Kusasōgen. Almost instantly after entering the land Sado seemed to have a momentary mental breakdown, it was brought on by his fractured mind and his past pushing through it Sado put a very traumatic event behind him. He then traveled around the numerous settlements scattered throughout the bamboo and mushroom infested landscape he found various people, in unison to this Vegeta decided to build a base of operations. These people they all seemed to need help. He healed a man who poisoned himself by eating toxic mushrooms, as well as a sick child, and a woman with broken fingers. The settlement dwellers were thrilled to have a doctor near they had never had one residing in their lands before and Sado grew to like the attention, and praise he received. Next Sado set out finding another small settlement where their well had run dry. He found two trapped underground water springs and crafted new wells for the settlement. Realizing that so many small settlements were in constant peril and in need of protection or help Sado decided to travel into the outlying areas. Before he set off Vegeta introduced him to another person, Uta. This man was a claymore, it took everything inside Sado, every fiber of his being to not fight this man. He gave the man an ultimatum, never cause violence or trauma to the people of the Golden Sabbath's lands and they could work together. It was a tumultuous agreement with the potential to backfire eventually. It was plain to see both men were on opposite sides, they would need to be careful as each seemed like monsters hiding in plain sight.
On his travels he ended up in a land deemed the Graveyard of Sin, it was a very interesting place the desert-like landscape and the rocky mountainous cliff faces reminded him of his old nomadic life-style. He set up a small camp and met with another local clan that was calling themselves the White Lotus. These individuals included Korra a tan muscle bound woman of few words. Fu, a small bubbly woman with a childlike nature with a reserved and apprehensive nature and finally a young man named Kilik. Sado spoke to Fu and set up negotiations and claims of land, Golden Sabbath would take everything surrounding and below Kusasōgen and the White Lotus could have everything upward and surrounding Takinomori. He traded with Kilik who was interested in his medicine and moved on back toward home. With time and rest he moved through the adjacent lands finding an abandoned site in the rainy area below Kusasōgen. There he found a manuscript of a lost and dying settlement from the past as well as two pictures of time gone by. He then traveled to Forskellig helping a merchant deliver his wares to his shop. He learned that due to the fall of the Freehold many settlements were in dire need of order and protection. No rules meant no regulations on bandits and highwaymen that robbed from the settlements on top of that he learned most shinobi either used their power to extort or destroy.
Sado noticed a growing theme among each settlement he visited and helped. These lands needed protection, he thought maybe the Golden Sabbath could offer that. A light touch to stop the crime but leave the people to govern themselves. He spoke to an older woman in a small hospital adjacent to the market and helped heal a few of her patients. He then went to Tsuchi Heiho seeking out the census bureau and made his clan official claiming the lands he had visited and placing them under the protection of the Golden Sabbath. He stopped at the market and bought a permit to build roads and a set of obsidian shaded armor. Returning home he found a boy tramping around the base Vegeta had created. Instinctively he stepped out from his hidden position and attacked without thought. He forced upon the boy a truth serum wanting to know why he was here, what he wanted and most of all who he was. During a short fight Sado got over himself and his hatred of shinobi enough to realize this boy meant him nor his lands any harm. More than that he was looking to promote peace and prosperity. Sado asked him to join his clan and explained his thoughts and the tenets of his clan as well as noticed a familiar technique the boy had used. Not long after the fight ended a woman came up to Sado asking for his help. She was from Forskellig and a hunting party had gone missing. The kid told Sado his name was Trunks and then Sado and Trunks decided to go looking for the hunting party.
The woman had told Sado that they may have ventured into the Haunted Forest so Sado and Trunks traveled northward passing through Tsuchi Heiho. Sado noticed a gleam in the boy's eye as he saw all the wares and weapons and slipped him some ryo he had saved up to go on a little spending spree. Once Trunks returned they continued onward toward their destination. Reaching the forest Sado noticed multiple off putting things multiple sets of tracks, skittish animals and the distinct smell of burnt chemicals and plastics. Tracking down the scent he and Trunks found the remains of a burnt down lab with several instruments of torture strewn about. They followed sets of tracks fleeing the area to a small group of desperate and scared people. They together learned that a man had viciously tortured them. Sado healed a few of them and Trunks healed the rest. It however took some convincing to show that the pair meant these people no harm.They learned that a man freed these people and burnt the lab to the ground. Not long after this revelation the man showed himself trying to scare Sado and Trunks. Sado merely told him to cut the bullshit and show him where the man who hurt these people was. He was seeking vengeance and was nearly blind to any other course of actions. He tired to force a compromise wherein this man would report to the Golden Sabbath as to keep these lands safe. Grenth refused giving his name and information of his clan. Seeking retribution Sado attacked him, if he wouldn't do what needed to be done to keep these lands safe and force punishment upon the evil vile creature that did this then Sado would do it for him. After a short back and forth Grenth relented agreeing with Sado and causing his clan the Reapers to fall under the watchful eye of the Golden Sabbath.
A Renegade Soul | Sado's Home for Lost Souls
Abruptly and without warning due to their constant expansion and growing deeds a bounty was placed upon the members of the Golden Sabbath. The highest bounties placed upon their heads were for Sado Yasutora and Vegeta. Sado responded to this instinctively he prepared himself to fight. He worked on some technology and set up their base for defense forming a shadow clone to fight alongside him. He was lost to his brutish nature, the nature he was trying to escape. Time passed and no one came, finally the clone began to speak to him. It was silent up until this point, it explained that what Sado was doing was dumb, it was exactly what the person who placed the bounty wanted he was feeding into it. It told him he didn't have to fight. Sado shrugged this notion off. Didn't have to fight!? Then he began to think about it, he really didn't have to fight. That was his own predilection for battle that lead him to that conclusion. The smarter thing to do would be to drain this person of their funds. Takauji Ashikaga. He knew so much about Sado enough to form a bounty for him, enough to explain his appearance and his heritage. Sado had the clone evacuate the lands surrounding him as Sado himself fell back to Takinomori and met with the White Lotus.
Sado formed another clone and sent it to Forskellig evacuating that land as well. He knew they'd be raided, so what? He'd let the vultures and scavengers pick over what little fame and ryo they could find. He would aim higher, he would aim at the heart of Takauji Ashikaga. Without explaining anything he erratically and violently attacked his ally Fu moments after passing her a scroll and explaining she could only open it "once their business was finished." He cornered the woman in front of her people, and his own. He needed a real response from her, and he needed everyone present to see it. She did it. His arms hung high in the air his body and stance wide open she hit him with two techniques that would have killed a normal human, but Sado wasn't a normal human-... he was a half-blood goliath. Stronger, more durable and larger than the average human. His arms were cut from his body as music rang out over the entire landmark of Takinomori drawing the attention of every single individual present.
Everyone there saw the same thing, at the same time. They watched Sado Yasutora be cut down with ease before falling to the ground a slumped mass of arrogance, pride and rage. Fu opened the scroll reading what she was told to do next. She lifted the body grabbed the arms and moved them to a hidden location. She healed him just enough to rouse him to consciousness and he handled the rest. He used his heritage the same heritage Takauji Ashikaga wanted to use against him to regrow the missing limbs and in unison physically and permanently changed his appearance. During this time of unconsciousness Sado had very vivid and surreal hallucinations at least that's what he rationed them to be as they were very strange. It would take some time but the world would soon hear about Sado's
"death." Fu quickly left to claim the bounty as Sado went out to check on the people and keep a watchful eye for intruders. It wasn't long until a shinobi tried to sneak her way into Takinomori, looking for her own fistful of ryo and moment of fame. She was met with a terrified crowd that had just watched Sado fall, the man she was chasing was felled mere moments before her arrival. What she was met with instead was a charming, charismatic, haughty man who said his name was
Jack. He looked nothing like Sado, he was only six foot three, with a soft face and body, nothing like the description of Sado Yasutora. He subtly manipulated and reasoned with the woman until she felt herself in the wrong for her actions. He was the good guy here, and she would be the villainess should she rise up against the White Lotus here and now. She soon left, turned away however she had brought several merchants with her.
These merchants heard the story she was told and walked away with a secret the world didn't know about. Sado soon learned that the world loved secrets, and that story spread up along the Badlands of Earth and down the Land of Fire like a wildfire. It burned the lips of everyone who spoke it spreading the tale of the slain demon Sado, and the angel who put a stop to him at the behest of Takauji. The story influenced the world around him as he learned about it rather quickly. It was an amusing set of events and gave him a more devious idea to influence the world and information therein. With his ally Trunks bringing back one of those very merchants to Takinomori, Sado had his opening. The information had reached Trunks even before Sado himself could which surprised even he. Sado quickly turned the woman to his side, and she began to grow infatuated with the persona of
"Jack" that Sado had been building up. With a few kind words and by directing her pity toward the people of their lands Sado was able to slyly convince the woman to become a spy for him. She traveled out into the world along with a clone and began to send reports back to Sado the first few reports were innocuous. Landmass size, building structures, people they saw, as well as flora and fauna. Then came the more interesting stuff they began to trail the tail of two more of the merchants who had spread the story.
During this time Trunks left Takinomori before Sado was able to explain everything he seemed slighted by Sado's actions. This brought upon Sado a period of depression mainly due to his bipolar nature. He began to blame himself for Trunk's leaving, as well as racked his mind at all the poor outcomes that could arise from his actions. When everything seemed to be going it's best, Sado seemed to feel at his worst. He seemed to be letting everyone around him down, and this played heavily into his past reminding him of it constantly. As this transpired the clone and the spy continued their journey together toward the Tea Peninsula. Eventually the pair made it to the edge of the Peninsula. What they found well it infuriated the clone to a point of pure irrationality. By this point he had grown to calling himself Smith and what he saw in Qindong made him want to pick apart Takauki Ashikaga piece by piece and mail those pieces back to his army. He found a people oppressed, left to fend for themselves, starving, dirtied and impoverished. They were living in a war-zone, a squalorous slum clinging to each other and to their lives. He had to act he couldn't sit by and let this take place. He healed two children a young girl named Lynn and her brother named Bram. He then met their parents and convinced them he could provide them a home.
They were so lost and hungry that they were willing to believe in the first kind stranger to show his face in their land. He had Lynn's mother Izumi go around the slum and speak to her people and tell them his offer. A home, for anyone who wanted it. If Takauji wouldn't shelter these people, Smith, or Sado, or Fu, or Korra or Trunks or Vegeta surely would. He explained to them what was going to happen and then after forming another clone he sent them all on their way back to Takinomori. The secondary clone began to travel using a massive three-headed snake for transportation he pushed his way up through the Land of Fire a man on a mission giving these people any small comfort he could. Halfway through his journey he found a landmark that amazed him it was named Hayakami and what he saw was everything he needed. He went around to the numerous farms, plantations and fields speaking directly to the local growers. He bought enough supplies to sustain multiple landmarks both for food and for crop growth. He sealed all of the supplies into a scroll and proceeded the rest of the way home with these downtrodden people in tow. He made it back to Takinomori in record time and upon getting there he explained everything he could to both Sado and these people. Then he dispersed sending out all of the information Smith, and he had gained over the long journey. Sado was both surprised and happy. Even when he was doing nothing himself, he was doing so much. Soon he would take the fight directly to Takauji with the help of his clan, the White Lotus, and anyone else who would stand by him. Learning everything Smith and the second clone knew he learned about various lands, their landmass structure, their populations, their foodstuffs anything he would need to know. It was an extremely easy way to learn. He had probably gathered more information in this journey then he had about the world previously.