Kenji / Hikomaru {Updated for timeskip}

Name: Kenji Yakedou / Hikomaru Uindo

Age: 24

Bloodline: None

Rank: S-Rank / Jounin
Classification: S-Rank / Kage Leveled
Village: Konohagakure
Alignment: Good

Appearance:
As Kenji:
As Hikomaru:

Personality: Kenji had grown into a man with more control over his emotions, but that doesn't mean he is completely in control. He can vary anywhere from completely calm to a dangerous rage, but is usually somewhere in between. He acts a bit immature, which helps him trick opponents into thinking he is not as strong as he says he is. He wants to do what is best for everyone, and will try to see situations from others' point of view before trying to do justice from the general point of view.

History:

The Early Years
Kenji was born in Kusagakure to a kunoichi mother, Ayano Kenba, and a non-shinobi father, Hideki Yakedou. His mother was one of the stronger ninja of Kusa and was therefore out a lot on missions. Because of this, Kenji spent most of his time with his father when he was very young. His father was a kind, gentle man whose love and compassion rubbed off on Kenji. Meanwhile, his mother was often on missions and was rarely home to care for him at all. Furthermore, these missions were mostly assassinations and mercenary work; missions that Kenji's father was not happy with, but he had no choice, the village needed his wife's deadly skill.

Hideki was a blacksmith when he was not caring for Kenji. He was the head of a small group that produced shinobi weaponry; simple shuriken and kunai, the occasional katana and windmill shuriken. Though Hideki was reluctant to let Kenji follow the path of the shinobi, Ayano insisted that he begin learning as soon as age five. Additionally, Kenji's exposure to the shinobi culture drew him in; his mother was a very talented shinobi and his father crafted weapons for shinobi use. It couldn't be helped.

Kusa's Worst Sub-Genin
At age five, Kenji joined the group of children his age working towards being promoted to Genin. However, Kusa's history of being a rather hostile shinobi village conflicted with Kenji's values indoctrinated to him by his own father. In the area of skill, Kenji was no better nor worse than any other student, but he wasn't able to prove it. Kusa's values solely included getting the mission done and killing whoever must be killed in order for the mission's success. Kenji valued life way too much for the Kusa system to bear. On battle tests, he would often only go at 60% force to avoid doing something that he abhored; severely injuring or killing a fellow classmate.

Hideki would often get reports of his son's lack of compliance to the Kusa shinobi's orders. Eventually Hideki had an epiphany. He would demand his son continue to train under the Kusa shinobi, but he would prove that one doesn't need to be a cold-blooded killer in order to be a great shinobi. One night at home when Ayano was away on a mission, Hideki told Kenji that he wanted him to continue with shinobi training but would continue on one and only one condition. When he has to make a decision, ignore both his sensei's order and his father's teaching. Instead, go with the gut feeling; what seems right, not what he is told is right. Hideki believed that Kenji had a good enough sense of wrong and right to lead him to succeed in the shinobi world.

He was right. Kenji immediately shot to one of the top positions among his pupil group and was one of 3 who were promoted to Genin at age 12. The other two were twins, Aoi and Niiro Bokusou, users of a special Kekkei Genkai that allowed them to use a certain type of plant-based ninjutsu. Not Wood Release, but instead Plant Release, Koubaton; techniques that made use of Leaves, soft roots and stems, grass, and flowers. Their sensei was Aoi and Niiro's older brother Gokkan, a 20-year-old Jounin who had mastered Koubaton.

Team Vine
Like most shinobi teams, Kenji's team was assigned primarily to assassinations. Aoi, Niiro, and Gokkan all got into the assassinations and proudly killed who they had to for the benefit of Kusa. Kenji saw these assassinations as beneficial to no one. He abhorred senseless killing, but went along with it so that he could continue to improve his skills. He was stressed out because he had to be a part of sinister assassinations and thus became easily angered. The more killing he had to do, the more he hated his team who seemed to enjoy it. The more he hated his team, the more he hated Kusagakure. And the more he hated Kusagakure, the more he lost faith in humanity, for surely if one institution like this exists, then all of the couldn't be too much different.

He began to think of ways to dispose of his current team. If he could find a weakness in his team, he could try to kill the Bokusou brothers and rid the world of at least one sinister group of people. There was but one problem, he was only 13 years old to his sensei's 21. Not to mention his teammates were just as strong as he was. He tried to think of tactics, but got tired of thinking and almost gave up on the idea. However, one day the team was facing an enemy that used Fire Release and Kenji saw that the Fire techniques had a clear advantage. However, Kenji did not know if he had an elemental affinity to any element at all, so he decided to practice his skills with exploding tags. Surely the tags were able to set the vines and leaves that that Bokusou Kekkei Genkai used on fire, thus rendering the techniques useless.

Death of a Blacksmith
Suspicions had been raised about Kenji's loyalty. His teammates and sensei noted his rebellious behavior and practice with explosive tags. To test whether or not Kenji was loyal, it was decided that Kenji would be given the mission to kill his own father, who was rumored to be part of the resistance against the current Kusakage. Kenji was given his mission and guided home by his team. They waited outside for Kenji to do the deed. When he got inside, he quietly told his father everything he knew. Hideki told him that everything was a lie. There was no resistance, he was too afraid of something like this happening, but doing nothing obviously did not help his situation.

However, Hideki did tell Kenji that he did do something that would possibly make the village better. He had constructed a weapon that was powerful enough to take on any Kusa shinobi. Unfortunately, this weapon was not ready for use yet and would remain secret until the time was right. Also, Hideki mentioned that he would take the weapon's secret "to his grave".

At that moment, the door began to open. Kenji had gotten ready to use his exploding tags to face his team, but instead Ayano appeared in the doorway. She then proceeded to throw a knife straight through Hideki's heart, instantly killing him. In a state of panic, Kenji wanted to attack his mother, but was also terrified of what she would do to him. Instead, he threw his exploding tags everywhere and detonated them. Through the explosions, Kenji escaped his untimely demise and ran away from the house, ran away from his mother, his team, and all of Kusagakure.

The Desert
Kenji had kept running. Across borders, through villages, until he crossed into the Land of Wind. He was sure he was being pursued by his team because now he was deemed a threat to Kusa. He wandered through the desert in search of refuge until he came to the gate of Sunagakure. Unfortunately he was immediately stopped by the guards and was told to leave. Even after he told his story, he was shunned from the village. All hope had seemed lost until the guard dealing with him was approached by another guard who had said something about more shinobi approaching.

Kenji immediately jumped in and begged for a deal. He said he knew who was following him and that they were trying to kill him. He knew that they were quite powerful shinobi but that they had a common weakness. The deal was that if this information was useful to the successful defense of the village, then he would be allowed entry. After a large battle against the pursuers, the Bokusou brothers, which ended in their demise, Kenji was allowed entry and citizenship to Sunagakure.

Kenji enrolled in the academy at Suna in order to restart the entire ninja rank process. However, there was a problem that differed from when he was in Kusa. First of all, he was already 13 years old, much older than the other students. Second of all, it seemed as though Kenji's experience in Kusa had scarred him so that he became cold and cruel. Suna, which saw the human life as the most important thing to preserve, was incompatible with Kenji's traumatic past that made him more like the Kusa shinobi who he hated so much.

A New Era
To solve this problem, a young Jounin stepped forward to take Kenji as his private pupil. His name was Zakei Kedamono, a Suna Jounin with a very similar personality to Kenji. He mentioned how he would probably hate Kenji, but that he was the only one who would be able to teach him. As a 13 year old Genin with some skill, few techniques, and a bad temper, Kenji would be difficult to train, but Zakei, 5 years older that he, yet many times stronger, was sure he would be able to do it.

Surely enough, over the next five years, Kenji had improved. He was brutally trained by Zakei until he had become skilled enough to pass both the Chuunin and Jounin exams for Suna. Also, he had found he coincidentally had an affinity for Fire element, the element he had needed to defeat the Plant-users from Kusa. He also found he also was able to use Wind and Earth techniques and added a few of each to his arsenal.

Zakei and Kenji were on a mission to get information on Kusagakure. Before they went off on their mission, Zakei gave Kenji a red stone on a necklace, telling him that it holds a special ability. Anyway, now that they were both high-leveled Jounin, Zakei almost as powerful as a Kage, they were most likely enough to simply gather information. However, on the way to Kusa, Zakei and Kenji were intercepted by Ayano. In a fierce battle, Zakei gave his life to save Kenji from being killed by his own mother. Upset and enraged, Kenji fled back to Suna to report the loss of his sensei. After reporting the mission as a failure, Kenji immediately went to a training dome located in Suna and locked himself in for a month. He was alone and now would be alone again training until he was powerful enough to defend those he cared about.

Kenji had emerged from his training to be given the position of Sunagakure's newest Kazekage. For the next two weeks, he made sure treaties were kept with other villages. Nothing too difficult. He also established a genin team. Life in Suna was very peaceful until one night, Kenji came in contact with Aki, who had the ability to speak with the dead. Intrigued by this ability, Kenji took her in and made an alliance with her.

Trouble was ahead, however, when a group of Genin lead by Kaji, the Satanic Storm infiltrated Suna and captured Aki. In a few attempts to fight Kaji, Kenji had failed to even lay a finger on him. Kenji had made two of his Rock Clones to help with the situation. One clone was to discuss with Kaji and possibly fight for as long as he could, one was to take the genin team and get information from them, and Kenji himself tried to round up Jounin and keep the village safe. Kaji had taken over the minds of the academy students and had forced them to try to kill Kaji. Meanwhile, Kaji made an offer to Kenji's clone: Leave Suna and no one would die. Fearing the loss of his own life as well as the lives of others in the village, Kenji accepted Kaji's offer and sent himself into exile.

His newest task at hand is to kill his mother and acquire the special blade his father had crafted. His new life as a missing-nin has earned him the title, "The Rogue Flame". He went into Kusa and proceeded to challenge his mother to a fight to the death, until he woke up and found that for the entire fight, he was trapped in a genjutsu for three weeks by Zakei, who apparently was still alive. Zakei had revealed that he had killed Kenji's mother years ago and had a Rock Clone impersonating her. Zakei had decided to give up on living and wander into the would and eventually die. He gave Kenji the Plasma Blade and informed him of the Power Stone's ability.

Shortly after these events, Kenji had met up with Katsumi, one of Kaji's followers as well as some new shinobi. He informed Katsumi of his presence and convinced her that he was on her side. Now he poses as "Hikomaru" where he hopes to catch up on what he's missed and find a new purpose for himself. While posing as Hikomaru, Kenji also saw it was needed to keep both of his identities active, based on events such as the appearance of Izual and the Phoenix phenomenon.

The Split
Kenji had virtually split into two. In one life, he was Kenji and int the other he was Hikomaru. In order to do this, Kenji made use of his Rock Clone technique. Because he used it so often, he had become very skilled at specifically Rock Clones and were able to make them more often, more of them, and with greater strength without wasting too much chakra. He had separate adventures as both himself and his alter ego:

Training Bam
Kenji created Rock Clones to keep in touch with his new Chuunin pupil, Bam. The two of them had arrived in Kirigakure for a recon mission when Bam was attacked by a wolf-like creature, and so Kenji's clone took Bam back to Konoha for evaluation. It eventually turned out that Bam had been bitten by a Werewolf and had been given an array of abilities based on his infection. Kenji posed as a Konoha jounin and took Bam under his wing for the time being. Kenji worked with Bam to control the wolf abilities. At that point, Bam could not control when he transformed and could not control his strength in wolf form. Kenji had worked to train Bam to control this power fully.

There were a few things that happened as a result of the training. Bam had grown to control his power and was able to use it when needed. Kenji warned Bam not to use the wolf form all the time so that he would not become dependent upon it. He hoped this would teach Bam more control over himself and any situation. Also, he hoped Bam would rise to a higher level of strength in his normal state without having to use the wolf form to fight all the time. Kenji also faced the fact that he was unable to use many types of ninja techniques. He had many learned ninjutsu and had great taijutsu skill, but had not learned many genjutsu, for example. Kenji used this training period in order to expand his arsenal of techniques ranging from genjutsu to fuuinjutsu and others. He still wished he could have found a way to obtain mind connection and reading techniques, yet had no way of obtaining this knowledge.

Becoming a Konoha shinobi
Kenji himself decided to remain in Konohagakure and pose as Hikomaru Uindo: An ex-Kusa shinobi who had wished to start a new life in Konoha. The way he had prepared his disguise was flawless. Kenji had the ability to manipulate three elements]: Fire, Earth, and Wind. However, most of the time Fire and Earth were used; he neglected to train in Wind ninjutsu. Since his Wind skill was about at chuunin level, jounin at best, he was able to pose as a weaker shinobi to those who did not know who he was already. He was able to join a chuunin team and pose as a competent adept shinobi with average abilities, as to not look suspicious.

His adventures as a Konoha chuunin were rather average, something boring to Kenji. However, he was able to train to get better at Wind ninjutsu as well as various other types of techniques similar to the ones he was learning through his rock clone wherever it was at the time. He was able to become a jounin in Konoha by his own efforts in new styles of combat and was accepted 100% as a Konoha shinobi. He had even gotten to the point where he was ready to take on a genin team. However, he did not see himself as fit to do so yet. He was still very young, only 22 at the time he was recommended to become a sensei. Kenji felt he was not ready to take on younger pupils. He already had Bam who was only a couple of years younger than him. Also, he sought to end his double life soon.

Now
Kenji's rock clone is now returning to Konoha with Bam and Kenji posing as Hikomaru has been working under Katsumi, who had recently become the new Hokage. Kenji plans soon to switch identities with his clone so that he can go back to normal and his clone can take on high-ranked missions and die honorably in battle, thus ending his need for a double life. However, there is also part of Kenji that sees himself as a sort of superhero. Having a secret identity and whatnot; being able to be normal Hikomaru normally and then become Kenji when a greater power is needed. He has plans to get help with these conflicting feelings.

Speciality: Taijutsu, Element Attuned
Learned jutsus
Elements: Fire (Dominant), Wind (Recessive), Earth (Recessive)
Weapons/items: Plasma Sword
Goals: Preserve his own life and the lives of those who matter to him. Spread peace through authority.

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