Personality
Embodying the fire he is known to wield, Kano Sentō is bold, aggressive and intense; depending on who you ask, he is either a bloodthirsty and fearless monster or a kind, protective friend who would do anything. Regardless, none consider him worthless - those who scorn his fierceness consider him merely a skilled warrior, and those who value his intensity consider him a capable and beloved friend.
Kano is not a numb individual, at heart. Whether in a great rage or deep mourning, he is expressive, powerful and vivid, carrying the weight of the room no matter the situation. Born into cruel poverty and raised in a world where death was never far away, he is like a torch in the dark; constantly roaring in the shadows, in both its peak and very lowest.
As Fire Lord Kano, he is categorized by his origins despite trying to grow beyond them. He is known for an honorable demeanor and tendency to lash out when attacked, someone who thinks in lives lost or threatened rather than political gain. His opinion of diplomacy is remarkably similar to his friend and rival Run Xiao; a severed head on the table makes for a better beginning to negotiation than any amount of money or physical might.
Life
It started with his first murder. Back then, he didn’t have anything to lose and everything to gain. It was still burnt into his memory, fashioning a blade out of scrap wood and glass to kill a drunk soldier on their day off. Their blood was warm, he remembered fondly, almost fiery. Perhaps that was where it all went wrong.
Kano Sentō had been a murderer since he was six years old, the inheritor of a legacy before he even knew it. He did not meet his parents until long later, though he knew the name of Fire Lord Kaja. It was, nonetheless, a natural thing to him that he had killed a man at that young. The warmth of that corpse was what taught him his power.
The next corpses had only burns on them, the blaze of a youth who needed no blade bar that of their soul and rage, and by nine, he could afford a boat out of the cursed islands he had been abandoned at. The Earth Kingdom was his destination, a place where any could succeed.
Full Moon Bay was a place of beauty and aspiration, but the corpses he left at it as a youth of eleven would not be called beautiful. He was, after all, no professional at murder yet. He killed and stole and lied his way to the town of Hesenu, finding friendship in a local gang there.
There he spent five years honing his arts and establishing his name as a gang leader. The daofei of ancient times were a long-gone legacy, but at such a young age, he deluded himself into thinking his crew would be the ones to revive that. Honor above law, they spoke with smug, ignorant grins, let none, even those crowned, say otherwise.
“Have you heard about Chao Zhen?” Mei-Hui asked, leaning back against the wooden rail of their cabin. She smiled as he gave her a look of puzzlement, finishing his bite of doushabao with a grin.
“The military town north of here?” Enlai questioned, stopping his swings. His arms glistened with sweat as he sat the training sword down. Kano sighed.
“You know I don’t hear rumors like you all do, I don’t have chatterbird parents to talk about it.” He deadpanned as Mei-Hui gave him a dry look. “Is it a good place to start?”
“If we’re going to do this, we need soldiers. I hear some of the best live there, like Captain Hong.” Jia advised, stretching slightly.
“Then we should start there.” Kai noted, looking to Kano for confirmation. He smiled as he pointed north.
“To Chao Zhen then.”
It was a slaughter, needless to say. They came in the night, capturing a soldier by the name of Li Jin by dent of sheer numbers and the poor man’s hesitation to kill. Kai had been injured slightly by a shard of earth, but the boy was the sturdiest of them, barrel-chested. Kano of Hesenu smiled at their grand victory, pointing the knife.
“Join us or we’ll kill you.” He threatened shamelessly, high on adrenaline as he looked at the dark-skinned Earthbender. He received a nervous look and a few seconds of silence, before being given a physical response.
“KANO!” The girl screamed bloodily, her last words, as an emerald-eyed warrior skewered her on a spike of metal, breaking the door down. Three men had come, each one armored and bearing a weapon.
Enlai was splattered across the wall by a strike of earth when he charged a man later discovered to be Earth King Taron. Jia had been beaten to death when he refused to submit to Captain Hong, who had come to rescue their friend Li Jin.
“I challenge you to a duel for the crown!” Kano spoke boldly, childishly, and the blood-covered ruler was so amused he accepted.
For an untrained man, he had fared rather decently against the Earth King, so amused and with the godlike arrogance of someone bearing a crown, the king-by-consort had allowed him to flee unarmed and without even burying his friends. He only remembered two things from the incident; the green-eyed monster who murdered Mei-Hui and the tan-skinned ruler who did not care for life.
Thankfully, there was always a place for the beaten and exiled, those with nowhere else to go; he returned to his homeland an exile of the Earth Kingdom, and Kano the Exile soon became Private Kano of the Fire Nation military. Dusty robes and village smith-forged shanks were traded for ornate armor and fine blades, dirtied skin and underfed body transformed into shining flesh and rippling muscle.
Eventually, he even found his lost family. Lieutenant Natsuko, his nephew and a rival, encouraged him to rise in the ranks, and the sagehood of his parents made him work even harder to spite them, his own militant lifestyle the opposite of High Sage Eineya and Grand Sage Kaja. His power was respected among his peers, an up-and-coming talent - loved by soldiers and off the battlefield, though subject to an occasional scandal.
By the time he was known as a corporal, he had even found love, however tragic. Sage Tamiko was not a perfect woman, but he was not a perfect man either. They often found themselves fighting, different perspectives and different backgrounds conflicting - sometimes violently, as she did not hesitate to raise a hand and he had never learned concepts like restraint in his life.
Thankfully, love did not fill his time as a soldier. He studied under two different instructors, one for military tactics, one for bending. Corporal Sazu, though unpopular among his peers and less known for his strategic prowess, was without a doubt one of the finest firebenders to grace the nation, and while average in bending, Major Lee was the strategic leader of the Fire Nation military, alongside Fire Lord Kozoku.
Kano avoided a spout of flames as he struck down a sword with his own dagger. His foe launched forward, propelled by a blast of heated air, and he lept into the air, supported by his own blaze. After the inertia of the first launch, he shot forward rather than continue to be propelled, tackling his sparring partner to the ground.
Though a mundane fight would end there, they were Firebenders. A ball of heat exploded in front of his face and he rolled over, controlling the heat away from his singed brown locks. Pain was but an ephemeral dream in the rush of adrenaline, yet one of the cornerstones of their style of fighting was to never ignore a flame, even the smallest spark, lest it be turned against you.
“You’ve gotten better.” Sazu praised, standing up and raising his sword again even as Kano raised his parrying dagger and thinner blade.
“Only thanks to you,” He noted as he charged again.
“The savages of the Kingdom are wasting land!” The golden-eyed lord ranted, slamming a hand against the table of granite. He took a large drink of his wine even as he looked around, seeing the nervous youths he had recruited with his borderline cultic viewpoints.
“We should take power back, milord.” The stormy-eyed warrior advised, standing next to Kano. He looked to Kano for unneeded reassurance, so like a proper Shang, he smiled at Private Kaibutsu.
“Perhaps the coronation?” He suggested, eager to please his newly-found family.
“Perfect!” Lord Sazai exclaimed, validating Corporal Kano Shang.
He launched across the cliff, scrambling to grab ahold of rocks as he did. Though he had witnessed the technique before, using firebending to propel him such lengths was still a work in progress for now. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he pulled himself up the cliff, more confident in his strength than his ability to clear distances.
“Welcome to the best view in Caldera.” Narayan greeted, clapping him on the back, and Kano Shang couldn’t help but be wide-eyed. He could see the entire city, even the peak of the palace, with nearly perfect quality. It was the kind of view people killed for.
“You come here every day?” He asked incredulously, feeling the tears on his skin from climbing up the cliffside. The master of firebending nodded.
“It’s when you can do stuff like this without issue that you can call yourself a master, kid.”
Though he had met Run Xiao once before, at that fateful day in Chao Zhen, it was in a tavern he ran as ‘Carrot King’ - once, he had contemplated making the speaking of that title treason against the fire nation after being teased too much about it, but the tendency of the Earth King to use it made it a dangerous political move - that they became friends and, in a way, rivals.
“Companies are corrupt and generate poverty, Kano.” He remembered the short-haired man say bluntly, refusing to touch a drop of alcohol if it was produced by his company. Though Sazu did not see eye to eye with the Earthbending soldier, he knew Run’s type of person; they didn’t need someone to reason with, they needed someone to yell at and then be yelled at by.
“Our employees are paid better than most soldiers, and if anything happens to them, we take charge.” He had deadpanned with equal bluntness, making the emerald-eyed soldier sigh.
“Forcing them into being under you doesn’t solve poverty, it just creates monopoly. Especially with Sazu dipping his fingers in ores, a very common Earth Kingdom export.” Kano gave him a surprised look.
“What the hell are you talking about? I never heard anything about ores. I just wanna vibe, sell some carrots and run taverns, man.”
“Welcome to the Fire Nation Military, ‘Ghost’. You seem pretty solid, so you’ll be with me for a while.” Sergeant Kano spoke, patting the quiet trainee’s shoulder. A glare that could kill was sent his way, but he had learned that trainees fell into two categories; ‘I think I could kill you if I tried’ and ‘I’m a total novice’, and both tended to be absolute amateurs.
Nonetheless, the black-haired boy offered a polite nod, still refusing to speak much at all, and they began their tour of Caldera. Once, the city was unfamiliar to him, but he had long since become familiar with it enough to call it his home; he was Sergeant Kano of Caldera, firebending master.
“I hope you’re used to sleeping rough, though,” he spoke to the black-haired youth, though he was considered young as well, “because we have a fort to construct.”
Notable Items
The Crown of the Carrot King:
A symbol of past wealth, the Crown of the Carrot King is a circlet of solid gold lined with silver, wrought iron and meteorite, resources imported from both the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes, inset with fiery shapes of topaz and ruby. Obsidian is encrusted onto its edges, made with the help of a Lavabender. It is a crown worthy of the richest man in the world, and even after losing much of his wealth, he keeps it held in the depths of his armory.
Lee's Remembrance:
A blade of rare steel forged from the remnants of blades from Fire Nation officers that retired, Kano keeps it with him as a memoir from his mentor and friend Lee, who he forever considers an even better officer than him. It is a blade fit for his height, made by the finest smith that his comrade could commission.
