Biography.
Character Name: Sarutobi Asuma.

Age: 21

Birthday: 18th October.

Rank outside ANBU: Technically chuunin. Ex-member of the Twelve Elite Guardians.

Affiliated with which ANBU branch: Hunters.

Registration Number: 010829

Physical Appearance

Height: 6'3"

Weight: 180lbs.

Blood Type: O

Hair: Black and spiky. Long on top, shorter at the back. An anti-mullet, if you will.

Eyes: Dark brown and expressive--when he's in a good mood. Narrow and scowling when he's not.

Skin: Like a surprising number of ninja, Asuma's lucky enough to have an all-weather tan. (Unlike most ninja, Asuma spends his free time sunning himself on rooftops to ensure this remains the case.)

Facial Features: Angular jaw that will likely square out when he finishes growing up, straight, somewhat large nose (which he maintains works with his face, and it's masculine, dammit). Heavy, arching eyebrows that lend definition to his expressions, and sideburns bleeding into chin-fuzz that are attempting to be a beard. Currently, Asuma's at the stage where he's more capable of growing scruff than ruff, but he remains hopeful.

Other Physical Traits: Broad shoulders, long legs, a six pack civilians would kill for--Asuma maintains that if he hadn't been a ninja, he would have been a pin-up model.

Handedness: Right-handed. But he uses his trench-knives with both.

Voice: Amused, friendly, with a whole lot of bass to give it some depth. Drawls a little when he gets annoyed or bitter.

Identifying Marks: ANBU tattoo, fire-kanji sash, metal bracelets, slightly faded, badly done band name tattoo between his shoulderblades (Shutdown Assassin!), wannabe-beard, perma-cigarette--Asuma's identifying marks are all in his accessories.

Usual Clothing: When he's not in uniform Asuma skates the fashion curve between rough and ready and trendy-casual, dressing mostly in jeans and button-down shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Each broad and bony wrist is always encircled by a heavy metal bracelet. If you could get Asuma to take them off--which'd require a blow to the head or a whole lot of alcohol--you'd find a Buddhist mantra scratched on the inside of each one.

When he's trying to impress someone with a double-X chromosome, he'll upgrade to a slightly rumpled suit--though the top button will remain undone, the tie will be collarbone level, and the sleeves will always be rolled up.

ANBU Mask: Goat, in savage black streaks.

Living Situation: HQ. Room 303.

Ninja Skills

Fighting Style: Asuma's very much a taijutsu man, with just enough ninjustu dusted on top to make him unpredictable. He's got a couple of special jutsu that he calls on when needs must, but mostly tends to rely on the 'hit 'em until they stop moving' approach. His chakra nature is Wind.

Preferred Weapons: A specially made pair of trench knives designed to fit his--somewhat overlarge--grip, with a unique alloy in the blades that enhances chakra. They work equally well as knuckle dusters or knives, and he's occasionally accused of treating them like his firstborn.

Special Jutsu: Currently, Asuma has two:-

Hien (Flying Swallow) involves him feeding chakra directly through his trench knives, lengthening the blade and--with an extra extension of his chakra--honing the edge to seriously sharp. Even if his opponent avoids the actual metal, they'll generally take a hit from his chakra.

Haisekishou (Burning Ash Accumulation) is a Ninjutsu technique utilizing the Fire Element. After forming the needed handseals, he expells a large cloud of ash from his mouth. When this cloud envelops his enemy, Asuma clicks his teeth and makes the whole thing explode.

Service Record: Asuma graduated at nine, became a chuunin at twelve, stayed unhappily on the back-lines during the war, and left the village at sixteen after a particularly loud row with his father, the then recently re-instated Hokage. (Though he did sign all the requisite paperwork first; teenage anger is one thing, having a team of hunters on your ass is entirely another).

He spent two years wandering around, meeting people, learning techniques, picking up pretty girls and bothering interesting looking sensei in equal measure, and generally trying to prove his dad wrong.

At eighteen he became one of the Twelve Elite Guardians of a Fire Country Daimyo.

At twenty-one, all but three of the Guardians ended up dead, and Asuma finally came home. Two days later, he signed up for ANBU.

At some point he means to get around to taking that jounin exam.

Personality

General Personality Traits: If you cut Asuma in half, you'd find laid back written all the way through, in fairly rough-handed kanji. He was a cheeky kid, who grew into an angry teenager, who mellowed into a skilled adult (who can mostly keep a handle on his temper). He's nosy, friendly, obnoxious, believes he possesses the most hilarious sense of humour in the world, and thinks the cure for angst is an affectionate kicking. He's a guy's best friend, a woman's devoted suitor (for about a week), and an authority figure's worst nightmare. He's almost completely incapable of taking himself seriously.

He's also pretty damn clever, but keeps that mostly under wraps.

Quirks: Capable of taking a nap anywhere, including halfway up a tree, but likes to sleep with his boots on. Everything he currently owns fits inside a single rucksack, but he's planning to change that as soon as he gets his first paycheck--the novelty of having a place to put stuff is one that won't be wearing off for a while. He folds paper cranes, plays Go or Shogi with real enjoyment, likes food with no nutritional value whatsoever (but occasionally gets a killer craving for bell peppers), and is often generous to a fault. Thinks Ramune is the best kind of soda ever.

Sexual Orientation: Straight, but will occasionally get himself dared into compromising positions.

Gifts/Talents: Knowing sixteen ways to kill a man with your thumb isn't really a talent to a ninja, but Asuma still has the odd moment of how freakin' cool are we? Filed somewhere between his ears is the enthusiastic equivalent of a sexual encyclopedia, and he has endless fun adding to it. He can play jump-rope, cat's cradle, hopscotch, jacks, pogo--and about a hundred other kid's games that are useless to adults, just because. Strategy and planning aren't his natural strengths, but his dad hammered enough into his head for a starting point, and five years of fighting on his own merit has put a decent edge on them. He can also speak half a dozen languages, and takes great pride in the fact that his accent is always horrendous.

Flaws: He snorts when he laughs, is almost guaranteed to say something inappropriate in a formal situation (and the rest of the time), has a terrible memory for birthdays and special occasions, occasionally realizes that he's forgotten to shower for three days, thinks his beard is much sexier than it really is. Deals with stress by going out and getting as much willing nookie as humanly possible; or, alternatively, by distracting himself with whatever's available. Also smokes.

And he's got this very minor issue of being stubborn as all hell.

Religion and Philosophy: Asuma has practiced Shin Buddhism devoutly, though extremely privately, for the last three years. He's had a few problems remaining vegetarian--bacon has proved particularly difficult to quit.

Likes and Loves: Any day when he can laze around, eat some good food, meet some interesting people, soak up some sun, and pick up a pretty girl is a good day. Killing the bad guys comes a close second.

Dislikes and Hates: When anyone thinks he's using his father's reputation to ease his own way, when someone gives him an order without earning the privilege first, men who mistreat women, idiots who bash religion, pigs for being so damn delicious.

Fears: Some days Asuma worries about turning around and finding out he's still an asshole, but mostly he coasts blissfully along, employing a very specific temporal focus; he thinks about now, and he thinks about getting his karmic sins wiped clean in Sukhavati. The rest of the time he thinks fear is for wussies and pretends it doesn't happen to him.

But spiders suck.

Dreams and Ambitions: Sarutobi Hizuren had grand plans for his only son. As a result, Asuma has spent his life cultivating as few ambitions as possible. Mostly he'd like to not die for as long as possible. Keeping all his limbs would also be a great bonus.

Relationships

Family: Son of Sarutobi Hizuren, the Sandaime, and Nakamura Tokiwa, the pretty ninja next door. He has one older sister, Sayomi, who comes complete with a husband he's never met and a child he doesn't know about. Sayomi still hasn't quite forgiven him for abandoning the village five years ago, despite the slightly sorry bouquet of flowers he brought her back. He fully expects her to come around in the next year or two--faster if he can get her to stop flinging shrubbery at his head.

Friends: Asuma's a buddy to pretty much everyone he meets, but his most recent teammates are all six feet under, bar one.

Lovers: Civilians are sweet, shinobi are flexible, nuns are have the kind of self-control to make you weep... Asuma will willingly embrace any pretty woman who's up for a tumble and doesn't expect him to hang around for longer than a week. Though now he's back in Konoha, long-standing family expectations are starting to nudge at him to find something more permanent.

For the most part, he's ignoring them.

Hero: When he was ten, his father. When he was sixteen, any guy who managed to make a woman look at him twice. When he was eighteen, the leader of the Guardian Twelve. When he was nineteen, Amitabah Buddha. Now...

Mostly he's done looking for heroes.

Enemies: After the battle with the dissenting half of the Guardian Twelve, Asuma is also done with both politics and making enemies. Though there are several disgruntled husbands scattered around the world who'd be interested in introducing his head--and lower bits--to a large stick.

Personal History: Asuma's older sister, born nine years previous to him, was both planned and, according to his mother, a delightfully well-behaved child.

Asuma, conceived when his father was thirty-six, was not.

As the son of the former (and now current) Hokage, Asuma had an upbringing that was both spoiled and strict, and acted out accordingly. Before the age of thirteen, he was a brat--but a lovable one. After the age of thirteen, right around the time his mother died (ironically from natural causes), he got a sudden influx of hormones and went from brat to bastard overnight. He started fights, grew his hair out, picked up smoking, got a tattoo, drunk himself regularly into unconsciousness, blew off his jounin instructor--who despaired of ever teaching responsibility to Hokage's son forbidden to go near the front lines--ran with the wrong crowd, and basically tried everything short of setting the monument on fire.

His father wanted him to grow up right, assume the mantle of responsibility, and fall into line as the Fourth's powerful, well-loved successor. Asuma mostly wanted to never grow up.

The war ended when he was fifteen. His father retired, the Yondaime stepped up, and things looked to be a little better--right up until he learned that "retirement" meant "I will spend as much time training my errant son as possible".

Six months later, after an especially loud shouting row with Sarutobi Hizuren, Asuma went home, packed a bag, scrawled his signature on the right paperwork, and blew out of town with zero forethought and no regrets.

A week later, he wanted to go home more than he'd ever thought possible. But that would mean admitting his father was right.

The next day, wandering around a market square in Rain-country and doing his best to distract himself, he ran across an old women who showed him how to tie the quickest sheepshank knot he'd ever seen. He smiled pretty and she offered him lunch on the cheap. After two hours drinking crummy tea and listening to great stories, she pointed him down the street to a younger man with some serious shoulder muscles and a lit forge...

Several dozen sensei later, Asuma lost two years and gained more random skills than he knew what to do with. He traded jutsu with wandering ninja, picked up sword techniques from questing samurai, learned basic healing from exasperated nurses still susceptible to a ready smile, worked for two months on a farm (and decided goats were the most evil creatures in existence), broke half a dozen bones, pulled every muscle he owned, met people of every class and creed, and had the time of his life.

Somewhere in the middle of everything, he heard about the Fox--everyone heard about the Fox--but by the time the news reached his ears, it was six months old and he was half a world away. He paid every ryou he had hiring the fastest messenger bird around, learned that his father and his sister were still okay (that his father was Hokage again), and decided there wasn't much point heading home. It wasn't like he could help.

About a week after his eighteenth birthday, he found himself wandering East, and accidentally hit the edge of Fire Country's Western Border.

The nostalgia he expected. The kick in the face he did not.

In the ensuing fight he put two years worth of learning dirty tricks into practice, floored three of his attackers, landed several decent hits on five more, and finally got clubbed unconscious by a tall one with dark hair.

When he woke back up, the eleven fighters--one of whom was a girl--were passing his identification papers between themselves, and looking thoughtful. Then the tall one stuck out a hand, hauled Asuma off the dirt, and offered him a job.

The tall man was called Kazuma. The job was filling the final position in the Twelve Elite Guardians of a Fire Country Daimyo.

Asuma, not having anything much better to do, and not being ready to go home without something really cool to show the old man, accepted. Almost not completely on the basis that they had elite in the freakin' title.

When they asked him if he was any relation to the Third Hokage, he smiled and said no.

For the next three years, he trained hard, slept less, learned more, picked up a religion and a specially crafted set of weapons, and got really, really good at working in a fast-moving team. He also spent half his time devising more and more complicated reasons for Tōu--the team's only female member--to sleep with him. He never did persuade her, but she somehow managed to become one of the better friends he'd ever had.

About four months after his twenty-first birthday, he was the second best in the ranks--which was solid gold awesome--and he discovered that half the members believed the Daimyo should be the only ruler of Fire Country, which necessitated removing the current leader of Konoha--the Sandaime Hokage.

That was less awesome.

Asuma didn't like his dad, but he didn't plan on stepping aside while his own team made plans to take the old man out. He informed the Daimyo--who was still very much loyal to Konoha--and accidentally set into motion a hasty coup d'etat which aimed to assassinate the Daimyo and replace him with a controllable one.

Torn by their own loyalties, the Twelve split neatly down the middle and turned on each other--one side led by Kazuma, who wanted to see Konoha under their control, and the other led by Asuma, who spared half a second to think that his dad was getting his wish: Asuma was finally in charge of something.

It was not as glorious as he'd always been told.

Half a day's worth of teammate slaughtering teammate was more than enough to strip anyone of their illusions, and Asuma had already long-buried most of his. But he knuckled down, locked his feelings in a box, and did the job.

Glorious it wasn't, but the strategy, when it came right down to it, wasn't all that hard. He knew the weaknesses to exploit, the flaws begging to be kicked; he knew how his friends and former friends fought, and he knew exactly how to set them up against each other.

Mostly, he knew how to win.

And he did.

Three days later, with dried blood still under his fingernails, and ten out of twelve cooling in the ground, he handed his resignation to the Daimyo and went home. His father welcomed him cautiously and told him he needed a haircut, his sister yelled at him (and lobbed his apology bouquet at his head), and everything seemed a little grey.

Two days after that, he walked into ANBU's Headquarters, and the world started up again.