Superhero Proving Grounds

The Ryūzaki Clan

There are many crime families, syndicates, triads and yakuza clans that operate and vy for control and power throughout Eastern and Southern Asia, but from the lowliest petty thug to the most powerful oyabun, they all know not to cross the Ryūzaki clan. The clan has often been described as a religion, a military organization, a corporation, and a crime family, and to an extent, each of these descriptions hold true. The exact wills and motives of the Ryūzaki clans are unknown to all but the clan's ruling family, but one thing is for certain: with each passing day, they extend their influence across the globe. Whereas they were contained solely to Asia two decades ago, now they operate on all continents, and in all major countries, though their seat of power still lies in the East.

The clan got its name from its founder, Tohoru Ryūzaki, Akane's grandfather. Since then, the Ryūzaki family stayed in control of the clan, and its members have an almost religious worship of Tohoru, who's often revered as a Kami, and thus his descendents inherits his divine authority. To the most doubtful, this all seems like a personality cult and a way for the family to keep control of the clan, but expressing those doubts in front of a clan member would likely end very badly for you. The clan has an almost militaristic way of organizing itself, where members are assigned to squads, each led by a veteran member, and those squads themselves are then assigned to a specialized division, and each division led by a member of the Ryūzaki family.

Akane herself

Akane is the firstborn daughter of Amai Ryūzaki, who himself was Tohoru’s first born child, thus making her the heir of the clan, but she won’t inherit control over the clan until Amai’s death. She’s been trained since her earliest childhood to take over the reigns once Amai passes away, but where most yakuza or crime syndicates leaders only need to bother about the big picture and learn how to negotiate, intimidate, and about running a business, the Ryūzaki family gives a lot of importance on martial prowesses, and all family members are expected to become masters of one or more martial arts or fighting style.

There are two reasons for this: the first one is because the Ryūzaki family lead by example, and thus by being masters of combat themselves, they inspire their members to improve themselves. The other reason is a closely guarded secret, and has to do with the clan’s founder: Tohoru found a hidden font of power, one that he shared with his family, but to master it required an ironclad discipline and unwavering strength, the kind that one could only obtain by dedicating years of their lives at improving and honing their mind and body. How he found that power remains a mystery, rumors say that he enslaved a dragon, that he made a pact with an Oni, or that was really a Kami all along. Whatever the truth is, once a family member becomes of age, they pass the Rite of Ascension, and inherit Tohoru’s gift.

Akane thus began to learn Taekwondo when she was 5, training with the best masters that both South and North Korea had to offer, and earned her black belt merely three years later. During this rigorous training, she discovered how much she loved fighting and competition, and despite earning her belt in record-breaking time for such a young girl, she wasn’t satisfied and began to learn karate, then aïkido, then judo, then jiu-jitsu, and so on and so forth, each time mastering each martial art and fighting style in an incredibly short amount of time. By the time she reached 18 and passed the Rite of Ascension, she mastered no less than 7 different martial arts, and had she bothered to fight in public and legal tournaments, she’d be a world champion in most of these.

When she passed the Rite, she inherited powers that she could have only dreamt of before. She was imbued with spiritual energy, that most people would call Chi or Ki, and learned how to harness and master this spiritual energy, turning her body into a living weapon and expanding her martial abilities to heights that she never even thought possible before. With the Rite being successful, she was assigned to the Internal Security division of the clan, the most secretive and elite division. Part of her duties was, as the name implies, to ensure loyalty and obedience amongst members, and occasionally taking ‘care’ of rogue members, but her division also takes on more complicated missions that regular members couldn’t be trusted to perform, such as assassinating a rival gang’s leader, stealing highly classified documents and technology from governments, or eliminating a bothersome hero. Despite her new duties, her yearning for fighting and competition never wavered, and throughout the years, she even began to learn Occidental martial arts such as boxing, kickboxing, MMA, capoeira and more. Her ruthless and relentless fighting style, coupled with her tattoos and bright green eyes, earned her the nickname “The Jade-eyed Snake”, that she uses now as her pseudonym.

The Snake’s powers

Akane can use the spiritual energy that she learned to master during the Rite of Ascension to imbue her body to make it a lot more resilient to the point where it’s as hard as solid steel, or imbue her strikes to make them a lot more painful and devastating.

She can also use that energy to manifest spiritual weapons, usually under the form of a katana, but she can change the shape and nature of the weapon at will to better adapt to the fight.