Karato Foxhunter

Karato never knew his parents. He was taken from them as a young child by the dreaded Mikage Autocracy, who had seized control of Yakai and subjugated much of it to their evil ways. Claimed by the Mikage, Karato was doomed to serve them, growing up in their fighting pits and war-cages. As he came of age, Karato showed a particular affinity not for combat in its rawest forms, but for the art of hunting. One Mikage general, Zau Ri, apprenticed him to his chief tracker. It became Karato's duty to hunt down those who defied the rule of the Mikage, be they simple peasants who had fled having not paid their taxes, or the steadily growing number of rebel bands that were instigating resistance against their Siroth-serving overlords. Karato swiftly added a number of successes to his name. At Yellow Rock Gorge he led a force of Mikage soldiers in tracking down one particularly wily force of bandits, even after his tracker master had been slain in an earlier ambush. For this, Karato was promoted to the role of Zau Ri's chief huntsman. The Mikage sought to not only crush the spirit of freedom amongst the common folk of Yakai, but also to extinguish the spirit of the land as well. Nothing personified Yakai more than the famous mystic foxes - or kitsune - that inhabited the verdant woodlands of that region. As creatures imbued with a mischievous magical essence, the shapeshifting foxes had long been a part of Yakai's folklore, and were the subject of a thousand tales regarding their cunning and the good fortune they bestowed. Neither aggressive nor warlike, the foxes were nevertheless viewed as anathema by the Mikage, who ordered their extermination. Karato was thus employed to stalk Yakai and bring death to the foxes. This was a particularly sad irony, as the only memory he had of his parents as a child, before the fighting pits, was of his mother telling him stories of the mischievous foxes before bed-time. Struggling to repress such memories, which were the clearest he had, he set about his hunt. To Zau Ri's annoyance, he always gifted his victims a quick, clean death, and buried the bodies reverently. Eventually, likely sensing his reluctance and wishing to test him, the Mikage assigned Karato his most difficult assignment to date. The Autocracy had become determined to hunt down one of the oldest and wiliest of the mystic foxes, Yumeko. This would truly be a test of Karato Foxhunter's abilities. For months he tracked the female through the forests, knowing he needed just one second with his bow to make the kill. For her part, Yumeko seemed aware of Karato's efforts, as well as his reputation. She taunted the huntsman, offering him half-glimpses of herself before slipping away, or leaving behind markings on trees that mocked him. Though initially frustrated, Karato steadily grew to enjoy the effort of the chase, admiring his quarry. Eventually, one had to give. Driven from her home among the woodlands she was most familiar with, Yumeko was finally cornered on the edge of a forest. Only then, with the shivering, starving female in his sights, did Karato finally falter. Though he had nocked an arrow, he found he could not draw the string. Instead, he collapsed into his erstwhile prey's arms, weeping as memories of his childhood and a lifetime of dark deeds done at the behest of evil beings overwhelmed him. Yumeko told him that it was not her place to forgive Karato his crimes, but that she would accompany him upon the difficult path to redemption. Their first act together was to lure Zau Ri into the woods, where Karato claimed he had taken the infamous Yumeko's head. Instead, by the day's end it was Zau Ri's decapitated body that adorned the entrance to the forest. The two joined the growing rebellion against the Mikage, in which they became heroes. Alone, each was a deadly foe, but together their speed and cunning was unmatched. They slew the Autocracy warlord Shar Lai in his castle without alerting one of his guards. Alongside a rebel force led an entire division of Mikage warriors into a series of ambushes in the western woodlands, eventually causing the mortal warriors, outraged at the indifference of their Demonspawn masters to their losses, to desert. When finally the evil of the Mikage was driven from Yakai, the pair retired for a while to live together in the forests, but Karato could not find peace. Taking up his sword and bow once again, he resolved to venture across Teleria and continue to right wrongs wherever he found them. Yumeko went with him, the fox and the hunter now living together in perfect harmony.