Ryuu Takeshi

Ryuu is a very care free and easy going person.  He manages to get on well with others, and makes friends very easily. He is not lazy however and pursues perfection in everything he does, constantly pushing himself to perform task better and faster than before.  He is very hard on himself for even the slightest mistakes he makes.  His temper is his worst quality.  He gets mad very easily, but fortunately he calms down very quickly and never stays mad for long.  He is slow to trust people he has just met, but is fiercely loyal to his friends.  Another flaw of his is the fact that he is extremely stubborn when he has made his mind up about a matter and very blunt with other people.  This has caused a lot of conflict with the older members of the Air Temple.

He did not get along well with other airbenders growing up, not because he had an abrasive personality, but rather because he was so immersed in training that he just never had time to make friends.  The exception was Xilingshi, who he befriended from a young age.  This life of few real personal attachments served him well when he left the Eastern Air Temple and became a mercenary.  He killed easily and with very little remorse, detaching himself from the mission.  This made him seem cold and ruthless to both his employers and targets, and helped build up a name for himself.

Ryuu’s life as a mercenary was very secretive, as he always hid the fact that he was an airbender by covering his tattoos.  This suited him just fine and he thrived in his new work.  When he wasn’t out on jobs though, he would often return to the Eastern Air Temple.  Despite his poor relationship with the elders, he was still very fond of his home and it helped him to unwind.  His excuse for leaving would be traveling, which the elders accepted as the truth since some of their members did leave the Air Temple occasionally to travel, but he never let anyone know that he was really working as a mercenary.  After all, it was frowned upon to take a life in airbender culture and he doubted that if he did tell anyone, that the elders wouldn’t allow him to stay.

Ryuu’s dedication to training helped him quickly advanced through the levels in the training, perfecting form after form as he learnt them.  His masters were particularly impressed by his exceptional speed and athleticism.  His remarkable speed and precision while bending and fighting was first thought to be unique ability he possessed, but it was later revealed to be a new technique he developed to push himself harder and faster.  He would lower the air resistance around him and use air currents to enhance his speed, while increasing the air resistance around his opponent. This technique is particularly special because it isn’t noticeable by observers at all. Ryuu just seems like he is extraordinarily fast.  He uses this technique while fighting hand-to-hand, with daggers, swords and even when using his bow.  He is very proficient with weapons and prefers them over his bending.  His favorite weapon is his bow, and he is an extremely skilled archer, using airbending to manipulate his arrows' flight and trajectory.  It was this technique as well as his dedication to training, and success with the other forms of airbending that later earned him his tattoos.

Airbending:  Ryuu is a skilled airbender, even though he hardly ever uses it.  He can create massive, sustained gusts of air, use airbending to pull objects like swords and daggers out of unsuspecting victims hands, create large swirling whirlwinds, and is particularly skilled at using it to enhance his hand-to-hand, archery and weapon combat.    
Archery:  Ryuu’s weapon of choice is the bow and he is very proficient with it.  He has trained all his life with the bow and aside from his natural talent; he uses his unnoticeable airbending technique to manipulate his arrows.  He can change his arrows path and trajectory in flight and shoot arrows much farther than even the best archers by manipulating the air around his arrows.  
Blade Combat:  When Ryuu can’t use his bow, he favours blades.  His weapon of choice is his katana, but he also carries two daggers that he wields to great effect.  He has trained from a young age in the art of sword fighting, and uses his airbending to enhance his speed as he strikes.  He is very precise with his blade attacks in addition to his incredible speed.  He also carries various throwing stars and knives which he can manipulate much like his arrows.
Martial Arts:     Even without his weapons, Ryuu is an immensely formidable foe.  He has trained in many different martial arts forms and perfected many of them over the years.  His speed and precision allow him to perform deadly counter-attacks in a fight.
Alchemy:  Ryuu has an intermediate knowledge of alchemy, and uses various reagents to mix poisons, bombs and even some medicinal recipes.  If he needs something stronger, he will usually have to purchase it.    


Ryuu without hood

Ryuu with hood and weapons


(245) Ryuu is tall and slim; he has an athletic build and keeps himself neat most of the time. His hair was shaved like all other monks until he left the temples. He now keeps his dark brown hair short and out of the way. His eyes are dark green and serious along with rest of his face which almost always seems to have a stern look. He doesn’t smile often but when he does he gives a lob-sided grin.

As he travels he hides the tattoos on his forehead with a dark-green hood and the ones on his hands with leather gloves, which cover his hands up until his knuckles, which are visible. He also covers his mouth and nose with a dark-green cloth, similar to what his hood is made of.  He wears dark green, leather armour which allows for easy movement and conceals many different weapons on his person.

When he isn’t doing mercenary work, he wears clothes that are very close to typical airbender robes, but with some slight modifications.  Instead of cloth, it has been stitched with leather for added protection.  Although he always carries his bow, he usually substitutes his Katana for his glider when he is not hiding his identity.

His face is also very expressive, and he finds it hard to hide his emotions.  This is especially troublesome to him because of his short temper and is another reason why he covers his face while doing mercenary work.

Ryuu wears light leather armour which offers good protection while keeping him mobile. His main weapons include his bow which he keeps with his quiver on his back (he fletches his own arrows), a Katana strapped to his belt, and two daggers strapped to his upper legs. He also carries an array of other weapons, usually concealed, such as throwing knives and smoke/gas bombs.  He almost always has his hood on.


Born and raised in the Eastern Air Temple, Ryuu grew up not knowing who his parents were. He trained alongside many children his age but formed a strong friendship with Xilingshi, a young girl three years younger than he was. Ryuu impressed his master’s from a young age with his skill, though not with his stubbornness and short temper. He would spend entire days practicing his bending forms and his combat techniques, especially archery and swordsmanship. He applied his airbending to his combat techniques and soon discovered a way to manipulate his arrows in flight and increase his attack speed and precision with the sword significantly.  This unique technique that he used without people even noticing that he was bending later got him his tattoos from the Council.


Ryuu never really enjoyed life as a monk and often argued with his elders concerning Air Nomad culture.  He loved his home and his heritage, but he didn’t want to live like a monk. His continuous arguments with the council soon caused him to decide to pack up and leave, he told only Xilingshi of his plan, and one night he just left without a trace.


Ryuu adopted a hooded outfit which hid his identity as an airbender and became a freelance mercenary, accepting various jobs from transport and security to assassinations. He quickly gained a strong reputation amongst the various mercenary groups. He earned various titles, the most common being “The Hood,” and many rumours spread around about him, almost all concerning his unnatural speed. Of course his speed was just a result of his airbending technique, but no one knew he was a bender as he hid his tattoos and never used airbending (apart from his unnoticeable technique) publicly.

The life of a mercenary was completely different to life in the Eastern Air Temple.  He had to abandon many of his people’s philosophies in order to carry out his ‘work’, and for the most part, he didn’t mind doing it.  He was strongly against the airbender teaching that all life was sacred, and could kill without remorse, which helped him when carrying out assassinations.  He figured that if ‘freedom’ was the main tenant of airbender culture, that he could choose to do whatever he wanted and in turn, shouldn’t be judged by the other airbenders, although, he never told a soul about his life as a mercenary.  


Ryuu’s first contract gained him almost instant fame and renown amongst the criminal and mercenary groups of the world.  He was hired to kill a former member of a notorious Earth Kingdom gang, who deserted and betrayed some gang members to a rival organization.  Of course his target wasn’t an important person and would not have been missed, but what got Ryuu his reputation was not who he killed, but rather the manner in which he killed him.

He performed a near impossible shot, well over a normal archers range, thanks to some clever airbending.  He struck his target, who was standing in a crowd of people, in the neck and from an impossible distance.  Of course this was possible due to his master level skill with the bow and his own airbending technique.

On his return from the mission, his ‘employers’ paid him double the fee they offered and begged him to work solely for them, he quickly declined however and continued as a freelance mercenary.  Rumours darted across the underworld about the hooded archer, who could perform near impossible feats of speed and precision as he picked up more and more assassinations.  Since he never gave anyone his name, the various criminal organizations dubbed him “The Hood” only because of the large hood that he was never seen without, as it hid his tattoos.


As Ryuu left the Eastern Air Temple for the first time, he soon had to turn back when Novai sent his troops to attack it.  He immediately met with Xilingshi, his lifelong friend and helped her and the Tekina-Kaze fight of the invading Fire Nation.  He felt good fighting for a cause for once, and for one that he believed in.

An important moment in the battle was when Xilingshi convinced him not to kill the attacking Fire Nation troops, but rather to incapacitate them.  Ryuu agreed, and decided not to take a life as long as he was fighting for the airbenders, and more importantly for Xilingshi, whom he had great respect for.

Ryuu Takeshi

-- Three years ago -- Ryuu sat in a seedy little Earth Kingdom tavern sipping cautiously at the pale-colored, room temperature drink that the barkeep handed him.  “Ugh,” he blurted out as its taste reached his tongue, he had to force the foul tasting brew down his throat.  He wiped his mouth with his sleeve before quickly looking around the room, pushing the mug aside.  It had been a week since he received his tattoos and left the Air Temple, but he wasn’t really sure about the world outside of it.  He had made a temporary home in a small Earth village not far from the temple, and he was still deciding what he was planning to do and where he was planning to go. He hid his tattoos with leather gloves and a large hood and he sat right in the darkest corner of the room.  He didn’t want anyone knowing he was an airbender.  He begrudgingly pulled a silver coin out of his pocket and placed it on the table.  “I don’t have enough money as it is, and now I’m paying for something I didn’t even drink,” he said to himself shaking his head.   He walked outside slowly, the town was very small and empty, and it was truly a depressing place to be in.  He paused for a moment to take a long look at the Eastern Air Temple, which he could just barely see in the distance. He found himself thinking of Xilingshi, his lifelong friend who grew up with him in the Air Temple.  He told her he was leaving when he got fed up of the Council and their do nothing approach to everything, and hoped she would join him.  Xilingshi however, loved her home and the Air Nomads too much to leave and she declined his offer.  He clenched his fist as a burst of anger welled up inside of him, quickly subsiding however as he dropped his head and let out a long sigh.   His sigh was interrupted as he heard a faint explosion coming from the direction of the Air Temple.  Ryuu looked up immediately to see a plume of smoke rising from one of the three Pagodas that formed the Eastern Air Temple.  Ryuu’s eyes widened with surprise and without a second thought; he pulled out his glider and shot up into the air, flying faster than he had ever flown before. From the air, Ryuu could get a good view of the ensuing battle. The Fire Nation was bombarding the Temple with their catapults, but Ryuu knew it would take a lot more than just that to bring down the sturdy structures of the Eastern Air Temple. His thoughts darted back to the Fire Nation’s earlier attack of the Western Temple, “was there ever a time when the Fire Nation weren't trying to wipe out the Air Nomads?” he thought to himself as he started getting closer. Amongst flashes of bright orange, Ryuu spotted a handful of airbenders performing Xilingshi’s signature air combustion attack and Ryuu let out a sigh of relief, “At least the Tekine-Kaze made it quickly,” he thought to himself. He knew the group led by Xilinshi was a formidable force, he even helped her petition its creation to the elders. It was probably the only time they ever faltered on their beliefs. Ryuu got a little worked up thinking of the elders again, “stubborn fools,” he thought to himself, as he approached the temple.

Mood: Worried Condition: Healthy

Ryuu Takeshi

By typing your Forum name below, you acknowledge that your Master-Tier Character requires a considerable degree of activity(to be judged by our staff), and that you are subject to removal from your position of your Master-Tier Character if site staff unanimously decide you are not fulfilling this required level of activity in an undue respect. This judgement will also apply if abuse of this position occurs, whether in or out of character (IC or OOC). ~Hakota-Zai, Site Admin

Type Forum Name Here: Tarek Raiden // Ryuu Takeshi

Cool character, Tarek. I approve, wait for one more.

since I've been lazy, I'll at the very least reinfoce that I approve of this character.
and because threads look better when my seal of approval is added...

bump for update

Bumped again xD