Maniwa Kawauso

[sunshinehistory]

Country/Village: Land of Rain
Rank: Civilian
Age at Game Start: 23
Birthday: April 2nd

Appearance

Kawauso is a lanky young man at about 5'6 in height and pale skin. He has light brown almost grey hair that sticks out in little spikes on the side of his head hair which curls into a puff ball of an afro if not kept in his hat/ponytail, whisker like marks on his cheeks, and a perpetual smile on his face. His almond shaped eyes are a bit unusual as the Sclera of them is black and his pupils and irises are white and the same shade of white that one can not tell where the iris ends and the pupil begins. The color doesn't seem to affect his sight at all in anyway. Also, due to being of the Maniwa clan he dresses in clothing that one can pretty much consider cosplay that gives him the look of an otter.

His hat the head with the snout as the brim and even little ears on the side and his hair is styled like an otter like tail on the back of said hat as little adornments, a black turtleneck shirt under a brown with bits of white sleeveless vest that looks a bit like fur. He also has black (on the outside) and white (on the inside) pants, black boots, and elbow length brown gloves that resemble otter claws on his hands.

Abilities/Powers

For the most part Kawauso is pretty much a typical civilian with a bit of control of his chakra. Though nothing that any academy student wouldn't be able to do. Physically he's pretty fit and capable since being a mobile resting station means he has to be able to survive and navigate various terrain on his own. So there's a lot of hidden strength in that bean pole of a body that you don't really get to see unless you catch him having to change a broken wheel on his cart/home.

His survival skills and knowledge are also pretty up there, alongside herbal remedies and such due to his roaming and his mobile way station operation. After all, it would be a poor random encounter of a safe haven if he couldn't treat his fellows if they have injuries. Though mostly he can patch and stitch them up enough to be stable until they can see an actual doctor or healer.

Kawauso's main skills though lie in his observation of people and thus studying how they act and react to things. This cultivated skill is the main focus of his ability to earn money. This is because of his job skill tree.

Psychometry/Mind Reading
In the most basic definition of it all, Kawauso has a spiritual ability that allows him to read the past of an object by touching it. Because of how powerful his gift is, it's not easy for him to turn it off, instead he's gotten use to quickly shifting through and cataloging the emotions, sensory information, and history without having to actually go into a trance. Though he does go into a deep meditative trance if the information in an object he needs is very old or he wants to get a better focus on a particular memory. Those who helped him also saw that he has the potential to take his touch reading to actual living things, but he has yet to try and unlock such stating he's too shy to read other people's minds. Likely he doesn't want to give up the only tactile comfort he has by being able to touch people without seeing their lives like he can objects.

Fortune Telling
Having spent most of his teenage years being trained in the mystical mumbo jumbo as he fondly calls it, Kawauso is extremely proficient in various areas of telling someone's fortune. His skills diverse enough that he can hook a variety of customers and rotate his specialty enough that it won't seem stale when he doubles back on his trade routes. Some of his main practices are:

-Tasseography The study of tea leaves, coffee grounds, or wine sediments.

-Pyromancy The study of images within a fire

-Pendulum Readings usually by interpreting the shapes created in the sand via the swinging of a free moving pendulum needle

-Palmistry The reading of ones palm and hand lines

-Oneiromancy Interpreting ones dreams

-Numerology Divination through number patterns

-Lithomancy Prediction via the patterns caused from tossed stones

-Hydromancy Predictions based on water ripples

-Geomancy Interpretting patterns and shape within rock, earth, and sand

-Feng Shui Earth's Harmony and how it affects ones life and future

-Scrying Seeing events of future and past within reflective surfaces.

-Cleromancy Bone tossing or Die throwing

-Ceromancy Reading the shapes of melted wax from a candle

-Cartomancy The use of normal cards to read the future

-Taromancy The use of tarot cards in regards to Cartomancy.

-Bazi or Four Pillars of Destiny The reading of ones destiny based on year, month, day, and hour one is born

-Augury Seeing omens in the patterns of a birds flight

-Astromancy Anything regarding the movement of stars and other heavenly bodies

-Arithmancy Interpreting ones self via numerical values based on ones name. (Names hold a lot of power, especially true names if you follow mystical lore)


Kawauso is also a mimic, though due to him only using such ability for his own amusement it is not as advance and smooth as someone who studies such with the intent to use it for survival or to aide their village. As such he has a very easy time (In that he only needs to see it two or three times) to mimic someone's body language or little physical quirks. The more he observes said tells the more he catches and can mimic the subtle points of such that truly make it unique to an individual. Voices take far longer for him to acquire a proficient level with. (About ten twenty minute conversations if he feels motivated enough to pick up someone's speech and voice.) Because of this it never gets fully utilized and thus a very rusty skill.

Though fortune telling is his main choice of income he does have entertainer skills that also double as a self defense skills as he had been taught and has honed his own trick knife throwing skills.

Personality

Kawauso is first and foremost easy going and playful. Blunt and honest to the point one wonders if he has ever lied or deceived anyone at all in his life. He believes that if it is boring, unnecessary, or overly complicated then he doesn't want to deal with it and will just doggedly trundled full steam ahead or completely ignore it depending on his mood and situation at the time. This coupled with his need to tweak people's metaphorical noses, the more uptight the more he wants to make them fluff up and become frazzled, can make a personality that can drive many people up the wall when they are trying to handle him in long and large dosages. His nature of doing things seemingly only if it amuses or catches his interest is also a point that can drive many up the proverbial wall since he can go from being laidback and quiet to a curiosity driven chatterbox.

The very fact that insults, threats, and even acts of violence are easily brushed away doesn't help those trying to deal with him when it seems very little phases him or seems to have very little impact on his behavior. This all becomes even more confusing to those who meet him when they realize or are told about his career of being a travelling fortune teller as he tends to act and speak more like a rural merchant then a mystic with any sort of ability to read the future or past.

Aside from all of this, Kawauso is very friendly and tactile with anyone he meets, though, luckily for everyone he did learn some manners in regards to personal space of strangers. However, if you go from stranger to friend, or even just acquaintance, chances are your space bubble is going to get invaded. How much of this is just him liking physical contact and how much of it is his gift driving him to touch things is debatable considering he doesn't really talk about such and just sprawls by instinct. Whichever case it is he is an instinctive cuddler and very demonstrative with his affection. Affection that is for the vast majority of the time stays firmly within the realm of platonic, even when he gets in a mood to flirt, as he just finds being affectionate for affection sake far more rewarding then only gifting hugs and cheek rubs to a select few based on people's views of romance and partnership.

It should also be warned that Kawauso has horrible taste in humor, making the most cringe worthy in how bad they are jokes and coming up with puns at the worst possible moment.

On a more serious side of things, what many don't realize due to his openly honest nature is that one can easily lie by omission and by being so earnestly truthful when he does give answers makes most people not even realize he may be hiding something or that his mind is far sharper and devious then his attitude would lead one to believe. After all, being an adult of the Maniwa clan he has a wider understanding of the maneuvering and plots that are happening in regards to his clan and the motivation to make certain Maniwa as a whole can find a way to be able to take care of itself without worry of others trying to take advantage or decimate them due to their collection of 'talents' within their ranks. A ploy he practices without many realizing as his soothsayer calling is ninety percent observation made guesses eight percent vague guesses, and two percent actual mysticism. After all, if he can make a correct prediction five out of a hundred times it's still enough to make people think he may be able to correctly predict their answers.

History

Kawauso is part of the last generation of Maniwa who can actually remember roaming the world surrounded by clan-kin and not really knowing what a stationary and permanent home was. To his young mind, home was pretty much being with the clan. In many ways he was born to wanderlust and the life such creates. Though he wouldn't really understand such until he turned eight years old and his ability began to manifest itself.

Because of his young age and the suddenness of his ability, the months between it awakening and him being placed in the care of a fortune teller everyone knew as Old Lady Crow are hazy and hardly there in his memories. All he knows is that the first clear memory of waking up inside her cart was the beginning of ten years of training. It was ten years of intense training to first get a handle on his ability and then learning a trade that would allow him to easily hide said ability in plain sight. As most of the world either see fortune tellers as charlatans or just don't think about such abilities since it usually can not be used reliably like chakra can.

This isn't to say those ten years were horrible or lonely. Old Lady Crow had several young apprentices that traveled with her and Kyoken had been known to roam around the same paths they did when she wasn't helping to guard the Maniwa clan as a whole. The interactions becoming both more frequent and then rare as he grew older and the large clan begin to form smaller units to settle or roam about, all in order to keep them from becoming a large target due to the unique and varied abilities that had manifested over the generations within the strays collected by the original clan.

Thus, by the time he was eighteen, and deemed ready to go out on his own, Kawauso decided to give in to his need to always be on the move and took up being a traveling mystic, while also being there to house and help any of his clan or clan allies that would come across him during his random meanderings. These random paths, or 'Direction by Fate' if he had to use mysticism in it all, would lead him to the Land of Rain at the age of twenty one and thus deciding to roam primarily within this land with only occasional trips outside of its territory.

His lack of fighting capability outside of being able to hold his own against most random bandits and mooks, coupled with his easy acceptance of the whole "if you don't work against me we won't have to crush you" attitude of Amegakure has him settling easily within the country.