The legendary champion who led the warriors that
saved Shudan from the invading yokai immediately following
The Schism. He founded the
Shudan Shogunate and became the first
Eastwind.
Personal History
The exact year of his birth is unknown, but Ono was born to a poor family in a small settlement north of
Zonyashi. His mother was a seamstress, and his father an enlisted soldier in the army of the
Hotsukai who was often away in Zonyanshi or elsewhere in the country. Ono saw little of his father growing up, but was said to have respected or perhaps envied him all the same. Life in his poor family and boring village did not appeal to Ono, and he viewed becoming a soldier as his best chance to escape that. Despite his mother’s best efforts to control him, he was loud and aggressive, and got into many fights as a child. He often picked fights with bigger, older, and stronger children, and won more of them than he had any right to. Those who saw him fight say that the young boy seemed to enter a rage during which time he barely felt pain or fear, and became all the more ferocious.
Around the age of 15 Ono left home for Zonyanshi, and never returned. With his father’s help he was able to enlist as a soldier, though he received no special treatment. His father was a simple enlisted fighter who held no particular rank or authority. In his first year of training, higher ranking officers reported that the boy showed an incredible aptitude for tactical strategy and an unparalleled ferocity in combat. Some reported that the boy lacked respect for authority, but it was probably more so the case that he lacked respect for titles and rank. It seemed that the boy respected those who demonstrated their prowess and knowledge though.
Within three years Ono was selected for a special group of soldiers who were expected to carry out complicated missions with limited oversight. They had to act independently, often making decisions on their own as they operated quickly or behind enemy lines where communicating with commanding officers was often impossible. In this group he learned even more about tactics, politics, and espionage.
In the year B9 Ono was in his early twenties and was sent to the front lines of the conflict with the yokai of
Nobumori. He participated in a great many battles, driving back their attacks everytime they began to encroach on
Shudan.
Sometime in B10, Ono was selected as part of a group of 100 men sent east, behind enemy lines to operate as they see fit, destabilizing the organization of the beasts in any way possible.
After many months behind enemy lines, Ono’s group witnessed
the final act of the Hotsukai from the eastern edge of where
The Fade was torn. Despite them being presumed dead by the Shudan army, nearly two thirds of the group survived. Among the survivors, Ono was the most experienced and senior, and became their de facto leader at that point.
Following this, he was pursued by yokai and forced to engage in several battles he should have lost, but he and his warriors persevered. Eventually they journeyed north to Mirin’s Pass, where they broke the progression of yokai raiding parties into Shudan and held them off long enough for the forces in Shudan to overwhelm the limited enemies that had already entered.
By B13, Ono and his men finally returned to Shudan through the pass. After arriving from the east to save Shudan once and for all, he was given the name
Eastwind.
After the threat of war was ended, politics took over again. A few of the high ranking wizards fought to take over the title of Hotsukai, while high ranking nobles and military generals tried to reclaim control for themselves. In the end, they settled on Ono who was a competent leader and popular war hero beloved by the common populace. They backed him, and began campaigning for him to assume a leadership role in Zonyanshi.
In B14, Ono
assumed the role of Shogun, leader of Zonyanshi. By the end of the year, all of the major cities in Shudan had accepted his Shogunate as the supreme leadership of Shudan. Official sources stopped referring to this as B14 and begin calling it the first year of the Shogunate, or S1.
Ono, a warrior at heart, was reportedly never entirely content in the position. Still, he did a good job restoring order to the country and rebuilding much of what the war had damaged. He continued an isolationist trade policy and never saw another major conflict in his lifetime. Some of those who worked with him in Zonyanshi reported that he regretted the rift between Shudan and Nobumori, wishing he could do something to restore the peace properly. However, he felt it was beyond his power, considering what he had personally done in their lands, and wished that whoever came to lead after him would take up the challenge.
In B43/S30, Ono overwhelmingly supported a joint effort between Shudan and the yokai to free the imprisoned Manna and restore stable magic to the world. Although there were those in the military who trusted neither magic nor the yokai, Ono saw this as a way to help restore both order and peace. The delegation from Shudan was headed up by a thirty year old paladin by the name of
Kansa. To accompany her, Ono requested volunteers from his own soldiers. He rejected those who might leave behind spouses or children, similar to how his own group had been selected to act behind enemy lines so many years earlier.
He also rejected volunteers who were old enough to have fought in the war themselves. He knew the yokai were long lived, and the war would still be quite fresh in their minds. He felt that they would never work with his generation of Shudan warriors, but that the next generation might have a chance.
From those eligible volunteers, both men and women, Ono selected the top thirty and sent them with Kansa to the east. Only weeks after she departed,
Ono died, never having seen the result of her quest. The exact year of his birth remains unknown, but he was around the age of 60 at this time, and had never taken a wife or had children of his own.
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