Personality[]
Arashi is everything that Mitsuki is not. He is uptight, diligent, and generally mature. About the only thing he has in common with Mitsuki’s personality is his own dry wit, but point that out and you’ll receive a cold scowl. Arashi has no patience for those who have no ambition and refuse to work hard, and he’s not one to run away from or hide his frustrations.
Despite his stick-in-the-mud attitude, there is a large part of Arashi that cares deeply for others. Even past all of the trauma that led to his embittered outlook, the shy and sweet little kid he left behind still lingers and comes out in strangely backwards ways of expressing his concern. Some notable efforts can be seen in his interactions with Kashin, who he tries to help build the backbone of by using his own assholishness to his advantage.
Appearance[]
Arashi cares a lot about the way he looks and takes particular care of his clothes due to their being the last thing he owns of Narukami’s. He wears a black turtleneck with the sleeves rolled up to ¾ length beneath a blue silk vest with a custom embroidered cloud pattern. His dress pants, which he wears with a white belt, are of a slightly lighter shade of black, and he wears black and white tuxedo wingtips with blue dress socks. He wears a gold watch frozen at 1:47, the time of Narukami’s last breaths, on his left wrist.
When Arashi joins the Yagami, he puts away Narukami’s vest to not take his brother’s visage in vain, and he lets his hair rest naturally with his long sideburns no longer being tucked behind his ears.
Finally, Arashi lets go of his survivor’s guilt and puts Narukami’s things away, keeping only the gold watch, which he finally fixes to mark his decision to move on. He wears an open blazer with matching black slacks along with a simple white shirt buttoned up to the very top. Looking more relaxed overall, the cuffs of his blazer are white, and he wears a blue striped fashion belt to match a blue handkerchief tucked in the pocket of his coat. Finally, he keeps the tuxedo wingtips and adds blue prayer beads given to him by Zeiryo to keep Orochi at bay until Kenbu frees him from the god’s snare.
History[]
Arashi was born the youngest son to Atsuki and Sabuke Murakumo, co-CEOs of Izumo Financial Holdings, LLC. Not long after the founding of Chuushu, the twins of one of the most powerful warriors in the city acquired a great amount of wealth upon defeating the dragon, Orochi, and building a tower on top of the god to imprison him. With that tower and the money they began to acquire, they founded the company of Izumo and named it after their father. These twins gave birth to the Murakumo and Kusanagi lineage respectively, and the company was kept within the family for many years.
Arashi’s childhood, though filled with rigorous structure and expectations, was filled with love and support. He grew up allowed to pursue whatever he wished so long as he made an effort to succeed and kept up his grades. As such, his passion for music became a primary drive, and he fully intended to grow up to be a music teacher. A shy but sweet boy, Arashi practiced piano religiously and kept to himself and a select few friends.
As a child, he studied music with the daughter of the prolific Sakanami family, Keiko, who was only a few years younger, and they became fast friends. Strengthening the relationship between the Murakumo and Sakanami families, the two often performed at events for Izumo. Arashi and Keiko’s duo quickly became a trio when they met his cousin, Kenbu Kusanagi, who was kept away from the public eye by his father. Keiko provided him with dresses to sneak out of his family’s home and traverse the city in disguise, and he and Arashi communicated via paper airplane notes using their family’s Reflection. The three of them spent lots of time together watching their favorite tokusatsu show, Gamma Rider, and playing “Warden.”
Arashi’s next closest friend was his own older brother, Narukami, an extremely gifted and intelligent young man with a beautiful voice. A trained vocalist, Naru quickly became a master at the breath techniques the Murakumo and Kusanagi families were known for. Despite this, he held no desire to be a Warden and lacked any real direction in his own life until the fateful day that their parents committed suicide.
Souken Kusanagi framed Atsuki and Sabuke for embezzling from the company and liquidated all of the Murakumo assets, causing them to go bankrupt and destroying their public image. Ashamed by this, Arashi’s parents killed themselves, and their suicide was taken by the police as evidence of a confession. Suddenly homeless and penniless, Naru became responsible for his brother, and they found themselves living meagerly in the Outskirts.
The death of their parents left Arashi extremely bitter and angry, often leading him to butt heads with the kind and sympathetic Narukami, but despite this, Naru insisted on imparting his knowledge and training of their Reflection to Arashi. To earn money for the two of them, Narukami also used his abilities to illegally hunt Ayakashi for the black market.
Naru’s life came to a tragic end, however, when he became overwhelmed by a swarm of Ayakashi while protecting Arashi. Utilizing his own original technique, the Raikousen, he used every last breath to kill the attacking Ayakashi, leaving Arashi alone with a crippling survivor’s guilt. Traumatized by his innumerable losses, Arashi took Narukami’s clothes as his own in a desperate attempt to “keep him alive.”
Hellbent on revenge, Arashi enrolled at Hanasaka Academy a year later on a path to become a Warden for the Koukai Agency, which is sponsored by Izumo. Here, he met the eternal thorn in his side, Mitsuki, and reunited with his old friend, Keiko, who was now presenting herself as a young man named Kei Nagisa after staging her suicide. Having attended Keiko Sakanami’s funeral, he had been convinced that his best friend was dead, furthering his trauma, but upon seeing her alive, he refused to acknowledge their former friendship due to that betrayal.
Now, Arashi works as an intern at Koukai, eager to participate in the competition for promotion. Despite his efforts to ignore Mitsuki, Arashi finds himself constantly antagonized by his presence, and the two bicker frequently. For the most part, he keeps his distance from Kei out of a stubborn bitterness, but the reality is he spends very little time around any of his co-workers, too preoccupied with his plan to take back Izumo.
Powers & Abilities[]
Focusing on elegant and swift movements, Arashi wields a naginata as an extension of his own body, ultimately wielding the Kushinada (奇稲田) after his confrontation with Kenbu. His fighting style, with or without the naginata, consists of leaps, twists, and other fluid motions. Unarmed, Arashi relies heavily on his feet, using kicks and sweeping motions.
Arashi’s Reflection, Mushi no Iki (虫の息) allows Arashi to control air currents limited entirely to his breath. This Reflection is a recurring trait among Murakumo and Kusanagi alike, passed down along their genetic lines.
Kazaguruma 風車 The wind he generates catches his leg and accelerates it, leading to a stronger attack. Any move where Arashi uses the wind to catch his body and propel it is technically a Kazaguruma, but the most common applications are via a powerful axe or butterfly kick.
Raikousen 雷光線 Two opposing currents of air generated to ionize and charge the air. The electricity is then channeled through the naginata, which acts as a lightning rod, and thrusts it forward, releasing the charge in a straight line of pure destruction. Used primarily by Arashi’s older brother, Narukami, but the breath control required is too advanced for Arashi, who can only perform this ability once before he loses consciousness. Narukami was able to perform this move twice before suffering the same setback.