KOUEN, Sanshouuo

Sanshouuo Kouen

26

Male

Japanese

Right Here

Skill is charged with the sword at the hip of the user, with the tip pointing directly behind him or her, but the curve of the blade is pointed down. His or her hips are turned slightly to accommodate for the sword placement. The sword will glow red at this point, but will not activate until the user leads with the opposite foot from the side that the sword is on. When this happens the user's sword follows an arching outer slash up at double normal attack speed. Meant to be used primarily for targeted deflection for downward slashes and thrusts in order to throw the opponent's attack wide, if the opponent uses no attacking move then the attack will be a extremely quick single slash diagonally up and across the target at half damage of a normal attack.

This attack activates only when the weapon is sheathed and laying across the back of the user's belt line. The sheathed weapon's hilt is grasped with the small finger touching the cross-guard and the index finger toward the butt of the hilt as the other hand's palm gently presses against the butt of the sword. The hips are turned slightly and the non-dominant leg leads slightly as the sheathed sword glows red. As the ability activates the user steps forward to the side of the target, quick drawing the sword and slicing up the side of the enemy. The off-hand grasps the bottom of the sword's hilt normally and continues the draw as the dominant hand reverses the grip, turns the sword, and brings it back down for a second slash down the back of the enemy. Meanwhile the user of this Sword Art has turned in during the second strike and steps back when the attack is finished. The sword is now unsheathed and ready to continue battle. This ability may only be used with a sheathed sword.

Sanshouuo is a clever individual. He's never had problems in school and is extremely perceptive when he wants to be. He's one of those quiet people that ends up always being the listener. He's very distrustful, but when you get past the cold exterior, Sanshouuo is loyal to a fault. Part of this is because Sanshouuo is a little obsessive. While he may not show it, he's always thinking about little things that he obsesses over. This sometimes manifests itself in his addictive personality, which means that he gets easily addicted to things, even when he doesn't need them. Take smoking his pipe. Even though Sanshouuo is stuck in SAO now, he'll still be finding tobacco to smoke and a pipe to smoke it in. If his head isn't wreathed in a blue cloud of smoke, he probably shouldn't be talked to. Strangely enough, despite his obsessiveness and his addictions Sanshouuo is very adaptable but some of this is just because of his training and being used to horrible things happening to him. Sanshouuo does have to watch himself, though. He tends to rage easily and has a smidgeon of bloodlust. Also, Sanshouuo was raised fairly strongly in the Shinto and Buddhist beliefs which can manifest itself in some strangely superstitious beliefs. Most of the time in game, though, he will probably be seen doing what he does best: collecting information and murdering monsters.

Sanshouuo was born to Izumi and Kazu Kouen. Izumi was ecstatic to see his pudgy little face, but Kazu wasn't as thrilled. They were young and not entirely ready for the responsibility of raising a child, but they did their best anyway. The only person in the world that Kazu adored was his wife, but having a child meant he needed to put more hours in at work in order to afford the necessities for Sanshouuo. Eventually, when Sanshouuo was around six, his mom was pregnant again, this time with a girl. Sanshouuo's sister came into the world just before his seventh birthday, but as she entered his mother left, choosing to save her daughter over herself. She died just days before Sanshouuo's birthday and Kazu wasn't too happy about it. He foisted the kids off on his father, who was a very old and strict man. If Kazu wasn't too fond of his children, the grandfather ( a man named Norio) was completely indifferent of them. He took care of them, but he didn't interact well with Sanshouuo or Kame (his younger sister).

Around Sanshouuo's fifteenth year Kame succumbed to a birth defect that she'd had that made her lungs weak and passed away, leaving Sanshouuo with his grandfather. It was about this time that Sanshouuo first started getting into MMO games. When his sister passed away, the boy withdrew into himself and cut off ties with anyone outside of virtual reality. He did well in school academically as his mind soaked up information like a sponge, but socially Sanshouuo was crippled. The only person that he'd bothered to really talk to before that was his sister and with her passing he found no reason to keep up with anyone from school. As soon as he graduated from school he moved out from living with his grandfather and quickly found work doing computer related tasks online. He went to college, but opted for a local college rather than a more acclaimed university. He finished quickly and quietly, getting a degree in chemistry without excelling so that he wouldn't become noticed.

Despite his better efforts not to be noticed, Sanshouuo did, in fact, have a girlfriend for a couple of years in college, but upon graduating he dumped her so that he could become reclusive once more. She had more or less forced him into the relationship and by this point Sanshouuo had found it pointless to carry on the charade any longer. He went once again to the solace he found in MMO games, but now he worked at a pharmaceutical company not too far from his apartment. His coworkers would force him from time to time to go out with them drinking, but he rarely talked with them, keeping a lot of his thoughts to himself. When he'd heard about the Nerve Gear, Sanshouuo had been excited at the prospect, interested to see what they would do with the technology, but was disappointed at the first software that came out. Then he heard about SAO and immediately became obsessed. The man had heard about the game too late to get into the beta, but he was determined to be one of the lucky users with the limited release copies. He waited in line for a week for the game, getting one of the first copies and going home immediately to get the game going. He was impressed to say the least, but then came the announcement.

Sanshouuo was in the middle of farming monsters when the announcement came. He heard the bell peal throughout the world and was pulled to the square without his consent. He was pissed to say the least, but as the announcement was made he stayed quiet and watchful, opening ears and eyes to the reactions around him. He saw the anger, the fear, the resignation on faces and he felt...nothing...What had he, really to go back to? Nothing. Not really, anyway. These people had lives waiting for them, but he did not. He had no intentions of dying, sure, but neither did he wish to rush to the top floor immediately to fight the boss. If this was to be done right, then it would be done with careful thought and planning. And, as he saw a few people start to get out of the square quickly (probably Beta users) a little cleverness probably wouldn't hurt. He took a deep breath and sighed. He needed a smoke.