Takako Shimizu

Takako Shimizu was a samurai in the town of Aru in Wa in the 1770s on the Wa Calendar.

Description
Aged in her late 20s, she was quite attractive and moved with grace and fluidness.

Personality
Takako was considered the model of a perfect female samurai. She had a keen intellect and wit, as well as a lively nature.

Relationship
Takako was the niece of the daimyo of Aru Province, Benju Matsutomo, and was one of the members of his court.

Abilities
Although she lacked the time to train, Takako advanced well as a samurai and specialized in the katana. She also proficient in horsemanship, calligraphy, origami, and poetry.

Possessions
Despite her training, Takako didn't own her own katana, though she did keep a knife hidden in her obi. She never donned any armor. She had a room in the daimyo's Donjon in the Castle District of Aru, where she stored a variety of clothes and kept a small brazier burning aromatic woods day and night.

History
In high summer of, before the upcoming Ceremony of the Three Thousand Steps, Takako, Benju, various local nobility, and a group of adventurers hired by the daimyo gathered one evening on the vantage point on the hill north of Aru, beside the Shining Temple of Bishamon. The evening was ruined when the temple's great brass bell broke as the hour was rung.

Around that time, Takako may have become attracted to one of the more charismatic male adventurers, if any qualified. In her best calligraphy, she would write an invitation to "view the sunset with me atop the Shining Temple" and signed it "An Ardent Admirer", and sent it via a messenger. However, this would lead to complications. If the adventurer didn't return Takako's affections, or didn't even come to the tryst, then she would grow angry and claim to others he was "trifling with her affections", hurting his reputation. But if the adventurer did, then Benju would hear that he was "shaming" his niece and order him to break it off, which would cause to Takako grow angry and make claims anyway. There was, it seemed, no winning.

In any case, Takako later had a bigger problem. Once, while hunting in the forest with Tazumi and other samurai, Takako became separated and was ambushed by a monster. She had barely time to scream and none to see it before it knocked her out. The alerted samurai rushed to her side, but the monster escaped them; through the undergrowth, Tazumi glimpsed the creature crouching over Takako and mistook it for a kala or even a shikki-gaki. But with no more than a scratch and a bump, Takako confidently dismissed this incident as just another monster attack.

But, several weeks later, Takako suffered a nightmare of being helplessly swallowed by a hideous one-eyed monster. In a strange bout of sleepwalking, she also transformed into a tagamaling buso, stalked the halls of the daimyo's donjon, murdered and partly ate a samurai, stashed the body behind a rain barrel, and returned to her room, where she awoke screaming with no memory of the events. Claw marks were found on her shoji door and the discovered body, incomplete tracks linked them, but this excited fresh rumors of the notorious "tiger-bird spirit" of Aru. Benju may have had his adventurers investigate and protect Takako during the night. During the day, they questioned Takako, Tazumi, and the samurai guards; they learned little but might've received cryptic clues from the so-called Seer. At night, they stood guard outside Takako's room, and after midnight she once again transformed and attacked them, revealing the truth when she changed back. If the fight didn't lead to her death, Takako was naturally horrified. The adventurers sought a cure or a cause. A powerful shukenja found it was no normal tigbanua buso's disease, but a spiritual taint. With Tazumi to guide them, the adventurers returned to the forest and likely hunted down the unusual cursed tigbanua buso and slew it, ending Takako's and others' afflictions.