Sasuke "Give me a raise" Sarutobi // 猿飛佐助 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gatescostmoney) wrote2018-12-09 12:10 am
gatescostmoney) wrote2018-12-09 12:10 am
Entry tags:
Sasuke backstory headcanons + Retsuden summary
i.e. Sengoku Barasa plays fast and loose with timelines and relations, and so am I.
While looking at some fanart, I saw a comic that had Yukimura calling Sasuke "Mikumo Yoshiharu." That led me down a very interesting rabbit hole that I decided to adapt into a SenBasa style background.
There are multiple theories as to how the character "Sarutobi Sasuke" can to be. The English Wikipedia article only mentions Kozuki Sasuke and Sarutobi Nisuke as possible sources, and searching for those names seems to only circle back to Sarutobi Sasuke and little else. That's doesn't create much for a possible background.
However the Japanese Wikipedia article for Sarutobi Sasuke also mentions Mikumo Yoshiharu as a possible model. This connects him to other people and places of the time, and he's mentioned on their pages as well. Yoshiharu was the son of Mikumo Katamochi, brother to Mikumo Shigemochi. Both served the Rokkaku Clan as retainers. Katamochi died in a battle against Azai Nagamasa, and the Mikumo (under the Rokkaku Clan) were taken over by the Oda Clan. Shibata Katsuie defeated the Rokkaku Clan completely after.
The Rokkaku Clan lived in Omi and near the area where the Koga-Ryu resided. Sasuke is a koga ninja. Two from the Rokkaku Clan (Rokkaku Masayori and his son Takayori) escaped with their lives during a battle against Ashikaga Yoshihisa with the help of Koka (Koga) samurai who pretty much became koga ninja. Togakushi Village is also in the area.
Bonus fun fact, the mon for the Rokkaku Clan looks a lot like the mon for the Takeda Clan. Just for reference sake, the Mikumo Clan uses this mon.
Using all that quick and dirty research, this is the backstory I came up with for SenBasa's Sarutobi Sasuke. It's historically inspired but is fast and loose with timelines. Roles and events become merged and attributed to related, more prominent characters. (Basically, the named ones in SenBasa.)
Yoshiharu and the fall of the Mikumo and Rokkaku Clans
Yoshiharu was the son of the samurai, Mikumo Katamochi, retainer of the Rokkaku Clan. Yoshiharu was only 5 when the Oda Clan attacked, and there was no time to set up a defense. A few soldiers charged ahead and broke into the compound where Yoshiharu lived. Yoshiharu received a cut across the bridge of his nose. The foot soldier was quickly killed by Katamochi's wife. I'm calling her, Harusa, which comes from Yoshiharu and Sasuke's name. 賢春＋佐助＝春佐 (I could not find anything about Katamochi's wife and don't want to constantly call her Katamochi's wife the whole time.) She patched up Yoshiharu and took him with her to meet up with Katamochi.
It was a battle the Rokkaku would not win. Katamochi told Harusa to leave him, take their son, and run to safety. Harusa didn't want to leave his side. She wanted to fight as well. Little Yoshiharu, though scared because he's freaking 5, also said that he would fight too. He didn't want to leave his family.
However, Katamochi reminded Harusa that she left her old life for the life they created. Which life would she follow? Harusa took Yoshiharu and ran towards the forests. Yoshiharu was always good at climbing trees, and to his surprise, his mother was too. And she was fast. She scooped him up, and they put a good distance between them and the fighting. Their goal was to hide at Togakushi Village. But the enemy caught up, and Harusa went to fight them. She was badly out numbered.
She told Yoshiharu to keep running, to not stop no matter what he heard; he had to make it out of this alive. If he got lost on the way to Togakushi Village, he was to shout to the trees above that he was Sasuke. Monkeys would help him. "Sasuke" was a name only Harusa would call Yoshiharu when they were alone. Yoshiharu followed his mother's command, though he didn't want to. Both his parents died in the battle against the Oda Clan.
Koga ninja surrounded Yoshiharu when he shouted that he was Sasuke, and they guided him to Togakushi Village. Yoshiharu's mother had been one of them but fell in love with Katamochi. They had a child, Yoshiharu, and she left the village to live her life with them. Seeing that her son had some skills (the ability to move through the trees) and nowhere else to go, they decided to allow him to become a ninja. They spread the rumor that Mikumo Yoshiharu, son of Mikumo Katamochi, had died in the same battle that took his parents' lives.
From that point on, Yoshiharu became Sasuke.
Sasuke and the fall of Togakushi Village: Sarutobi Sasuke's Retsuden Chapter Summary
In Sengoku Basara 3: Utage, Sasuke tells Kojuro a "fairy tale" that goes as follows. (Ch. 2 playthrough, Full translation by butterbrezel)
As it turns out, Sasuke was telling part of his life's story, and this gets elaborated on in Sasuke's chapter in Sengoku Basara Retsuden.
Sasuke learned the ninja arts under his teacher, Magoroku, and next to his friend, Fujimaru. Fujimaru had a kind heart. He would go against orders and the mission to save Sasuke's life. When the time comes, they would die together, he would say. Sasuke was not impressed. He was concerned with being a proper ninja and was a bit of a know-it-all about it. But Sasuke cared about Fujimaru. Whenever Fujimaru wanted Sasuke to come with him but was hesitant to ask, Sasuke would always read between the lines, call it troublesome, and then go with him. They were a team even if Sasuke would be a little tsundere about it. Suzu was another friend of theirs from the ninja village. She often fed them while taking care of a bunch of kids. The kids loved Sasuke and could cheer excitedly and climb over him whenever he came by.
Sasuke, Fujimaru, and Magoroku witnessed an Oda Clan attack in Owari lead by Akechi Mitsuhide and Oda Nobunaga. (This attack had already claimed the lives of some of the ninja from their village.) There was mass death and fire everywhere. Sasuke and Fujimaru fought Mitsuhide, and they only survived by Magoroku's rescue. The event shook Fujimaru and Magoroku. They saw how expendable their lives as ninja were.
They decided to become human and live for themselves. To do that, they needed remove all evidence of them ever being ninja. They killed ninja in a neighboring village and moved onto murdering everyone in Togakushi Village. Sasuke came back to the village then and saw the carnage. An injured Suzu tried to warn Sasuke to run away, but Fujimaru killed Suzu while she was in his arms. His weapon had gone through Suzu and Sasuke's body. Ninja from that other village might have killed Sasuke, but Fujimaru and Magoroku intervened. Magoroku told Fujimaru he did well and to now kill Sasuke.
Fujimaru pleaded with Magoroku to let Sasuke live. He could choose to become human too. Sasuke refused and asked if that was why Suzu and the others all had to die. Had Fujimaru forgotten who he was? Weren't they going to die together? He got through to Fujimaru, but Fujimaru went back on his word.
Instead of dying with Sasuke, he sacrificed himself to take the blow from Magoroku. Fujimaru told Sasuke to live. His blood splattered all over Sasuke. The pattern of blood on Sasuke's face looked a lot like the pattern Fujimaru wore on his cheeks. Bloodstained Sasuke called himself a lonely monkey and one tired of hearing Magoroku's words. Sasuke killed Magoroku then lost consciousness reaching out towards Fujimaru's body. In the sea of corpses in Togakushi Village, there was only a single monkey with a blood smeared face left alive.
After the fall of yet another family, Sasuke wandered, half alive, darkness clinging to him. Somehow he crosses paths with the Sanada Clan and becomes Benmaru's (Yukimura's) kagemusha and ninja.
The short version is bitty Sasuke was Mikumo Sasuke Yoshiharu, who became a ninja after barely surviving an Oda attack... only to lose his ninja village to an attack from within organized by his then best friend and his teacher. He became Sarutobi Sasuke after becoming Benmaru's (Yukimura's) kagemusha and ninja.
Sasuke could really use some hugs.
While looking at some fanart, I saw a comic that had Yukimura calling Sasuke "Mikumo Yoshiharu." That led me down a very interesting rabbit hole that I decided to adapt into a SenBasa style background.
There are multiple theories as to how the character "Sarutobi Sasuke" can to be. The English Wikipedia article only mentions Kozuki Sasuke and Sarutobi Nisuke as possible sources, and searching for those names seems to only circle back to Sarutobi Sasuke and little else. That's doesn't create much for a possible background.
However the Japanese Wikipedia article for Sarutobi Sasuke also mentions Mikumo Yoshiharu as a possible model. This connects him to other people and places of the time, and he's mentioned on their pages as well. Yoshiharu was the son of Mikumo Katamochi, brother to Mikumo Shigemochi. Both served the Rokkaku Clan as retainers. Katamochi died in a battle against Azai Nagamasa, and the Mikumo (under the Rokkaku Clan) were taken over by the Oda Clan. Shibata Katsuie defeated the Rokkaku Clan completely after.
The Rokkaku Clan lived in Omi and near the area where the Koga-Ryu resided. Sasuke is a koga ninja. Two from the Rokkaku Clan (Rokkaku Masayori and his son Takayori) escaped with their lives during a battle against Ashikaga Yoshihisa with the help of Koka (Koga) samurai who pretty much became koga ninja. Togakushi Village is also in the area.
Bonus fun fact, the mon for the Rokkaku Clan looks a lot like the mon for the Takeda Clan. Just for reference sake, the Mikumo Clan uses this mon.
Using all that quick and dirty research, this is the backstory I came up with for SenBasa's Sarutobi Sasuke. It's historically inspired but is fast and loose with timelines. Roles and events become merged and attributed to related, more prominent characters. (Basically, the named ones in SenBasa.)
Yoshiharu and the fall of the Mikumo and Rokkaku Clans
Yoshiharu was the son of the samurai, Mikumo Katamochi, retainer of the Rokkaku Clan. Yoshiharu was only 5 when the Oda Clan attacked, and there was no time to set up a defense. A few soldiers charged ahead and broke into the compound where Yoshiharu lived. Yoshiharu received a cut across the bridge of his nose. The foot soldier was quickly killed by Katamochi's wife. I'm calling her, Harusa, which comes from Yoshiharu and Sasuke's name. 賢春＋佐助＝春佐 (I could not find anything about Katamochi's wife and don't want to constantly call her Katamochi's wife the whole time.) She patched up Yoshiharu and took him with her to meet up with Katamochi.
It was a battle the Rokkaku would not win. Katamochi told Harusa to leave him, take their son, and run to safety. Harusa didn't want to leave his side. She wanted to fight as well. Little Yoshiharu, though scared because he's freaking 5, also said that he would fight too. He didn't want to leave his family.
However, Katamochi reminded Harusa that she left her old life for the life they created. Which life would she follow? Harusa took Yoshiharu and ran towards the forests. Yoshiharu was always good at climbing trees, and to his surprise, his mother was too. And she was fast. She scooped him up, and they put a good distance between them and the fighting. Their goal was to hide at Togakushi Village. But the enemy caught up, and Harusa went to fight them. She was badly out numbered.
She told Yoshiharu to keep running, to not stop no matter what he heard; he had to make it out of this alive. If he got lost on the way to Togakushi Village, he was to shout to the trees above that he was Sasuke. Monkeys would help him. "Sasuke" was a name only Harusa would call Yoshiharu when they were alone. Yoshiharu followed his mother's command, though he didn't want to. Both his parents died in the battle against the Oda Clan.
Koga ninja surrounded Yoshiharu when he shouted that he was Sasuke, and they guided him to Togakushi Village. Yoshiharu's mother had been one of them but fell in love with Katamochi. They had a child, Yoshiharu, and she left the village to live her life with them. Seeing that her son had some skills (the ability to move through the trees) and nowhere else to go, they decided to allow him to become a ninja. They spread the rumor that Mikumo Yoshiharu, son of Mikumo Katamochi, had died in the same battle that took his parents' lives.
From that point on, Yoshiharu became Sasuke.
Sasuke and the fall of Togakushi Village: Sarutobi Sasuke's Retsuden Chapter Summary
In Sengoku Basara 3: Utage, Sasuke tells Kojuro a "fairy tale" that goes as follows. (Ch. 2 playthrough, Full translation by butterbrezel)
Once upon a time, there lived a countless number of monkeys on Togakushi mountain.
They used to climb down to the village at the foot of the mountain to play tricks and make innocent jokes...
One day, they disappeared all of a sudden.
Why, do you think, did that happen?
The people living at the foot of the mountain thought something strange was going on and went to have a look...
... but there was only a mountain of monkey corpses.
In this sea of corpses, there was a single monkey who was unscathed...
... bowing his blood-smeared head.
What might that monkey be doing right now, and where might he be?
As it turns out, Sasuke was telling part of his life's story, and this gets elaborated on in Sasuke's chapter in Sengoku Basara Retsuden.
Sasuke learned the ninja arts under his teacher, Magoroku, and next to his friend, Fujimaru. Fujimaru had a kind heart. He would go against orders and the mission to save Sasuke's life. When the time comes, they would die together, he would say. Sasuke was not impressed. He was concerned with being a proper ninja and was a bit of a know-it-all about it. But Sasuke cared about Fujimaru. Whenever Fujimaru wanted Sasuke to come with him but was hesitant to ask, Sasuke would always read between the lines, call it troublesome, and then go with him. They were a team even if Sasuke would be a little tsundere about it. Suzu was another friend of theirs from the ninja village. She often fed them while taking care of a bunch of kids. The kids loved Sasuke and could cheer excitedly and climb over him whenever he came by.
Sasuke, Fujimaru, and Magoroku witnessed an Oda Clan attack in Owari lead by Akechi Mitsuhide and Oda Nobunaga. (This attack had already claimed the lives of some of the ninja from their village.) There was mass death and fire everywhere. Sasuke and Fujimaru fought Mitsuhide, and they only survived by Magoroku's rescue. The event shook Fujimaru and Magoroku. They saw how expendable their lives as ninja were.
They decided to become human and live for themselves. To do that, they needed remove all evidence of them ever being ninja. They killed ninja in a neighboring village and moved onto murdering everyone in Togakushi Village. Sasuke came back to the village then and saw the carnage. An injured Suzu tried to warn Sasuke to run away, but Fujimaru killed Suzu while she was in his arms. His weapon had gone through Suzu and Sasuke's body. Ninja from that other village might have killed Sasuke, but Fujimaru and Magoroku intervened. Magoroku told Fujimaru he did well and to now kill Sasuke.
Fujimaru pleaded with Magoroku to let Sasuke live. He could choose to become human too. Sasuke refused and asked if that was why Suzu and the others all had to die. Had Fujimaru forgotten who he was? Weren't they going to die together? He got through to Fujimaru, but Fujimaru went back on his word.
Instead of dying with Sasuke, he sacrificed himself to take the blow from Magoroku. Fujimaru told Sasuke to live. His blood splattered all over Sasuke. The pattern of blood on Sasuke's face looked a lot like the pattern Fujimaru wore on his cheeks. Bloodstained Sasuke called himself a lonely monkey and one tired of hearing Magoroku's words. Sasuke killed Magoroku then lost consciousness reaching out towards Fujimaru's body. In the sea of corpses in Togakushi Village, there was only a single monkey with a blood smeared face left alive.
After the fall of yet another family, Sasuke wandered, half alive, darkness clinging to him. Somehow he crosses paths with the Sanada Clan and becomes Benmaru's (Yukimura's) kagemusha and ninja.
The short version is bitty Sasuke was Mikumo Sasuke Yoshiharu, who became a ninja after barely surviving an Oda attack... only to lose his ninja village to an attack from within organized by his then best friend and his teacher. He became Sarutobi Sasuke after becoming Benmaru's (Yukimura's) kagemusha and ninja.
Sasuke could really use some hugs.