si vis pacem, para bellum

_Ken Hidaka_

deserter • sellsword • irregular

• Final Fantasy XIV
• Eorzea Collection
• Email

Background

_Ken aan Serrula_ was born in Minato, an unremarkable northern port in the province of Doma which served as the cradle, and very shortly after as the grave, of an ill-conceived and ill-fated attempt at insurrection against the then-nascent rule of the Garlean Empire. Though he was yet unborn when the uprising was quashed the crackdown that resulted, and the consequent rigid imposition of Garlean practices and values upon the surviving smallfolk, would mark much of Ken's early life and adolescence.Ken is the third child and oldest son of Naohiko aan Serrula, a fisherman, and his wife Kaoruko. The couple bore four further children: oldest child Sae, known for her sweet face and winning nature; Marin, their second daughter, harboring ambitions to become a school-mistress; younger son Riki, inquisitive and precocious; and their youngest daughter, Hana, who died in infancy. The family was known as Hidaka prior to the invasion and failed uprising which saw the smallfolk of Minato renamed according to the Garlean fashion, the better to "civilize" them, with their Imperial name, Serrula, taken from Ken's grandfather Takeo's now-prohibited profession as a shipwright. Though Naohiko was careful never to use their Doman name, particularly around his children, Kaoruko would let it slip in moments of duress.

Childhood

_Though the Serrula_ family attempted to shield their children from the worst effects of Imperial rule, in this endeavor they were no more than marginally successful. Growing up in an occupied city meant a life lived under the watchful gaze of soldiers on the street corners and searchlights in the sky, something that for many years Ken and his siblings considered entirely normal. The children, much to Kaoruko's dismay, received a Garlean education at the local schoolhouse - an education aimed at inculcating Imperial values early and preparing them, most particularly the boys, for service in the Legions once they came of age.For all he was something of a handful as a child, awkward and stubborn and almost entirely uninterested in school, Ken nonetheless grew up seeing his eventual conscription as utterly inevitable. Joining the Legions was merely what boys did when they became men, or close to it, and it made as much sense to him to object to it as it did to the turning of the seasons. He never could quite understand why his acceptance of the fact should upset his parents so, or why his mother was so set against his friendship with Kouichirou Angustus, the only son of a Roegadyn builder who had been granted Garlean citizenship.Though the family clung together and his parents did their best, Ken's home life was nonetheless difficult, with his youngest sister Hana perishing of a malady of the brain some moons shy of her second nameday, something his mother never quite came to terms with. The family, like most of Minato's Peregrinus, lived a precarious existence, entirely reliant on Naohiko's job as a fisherman to keep them from penury - a position the Imperials, who needed the townsfolk well-fed enough to work, allowed him to keep only on sufferance of continued good conduct. Though Kaoruko attempted to supplement the family's income by taking in needlework and laundry, most of their neighbors were doing no better or even worse than they were, and she only seldom managed to secure even brief employment.Worse was to come. During Ken's ninth summer, Minato fell prey to a mysterious illness that came to be named Ikuji's Greed by the smallfolk. Believed by the more superstitious members of the Doman population to be the consequence of the Garlean ban on shipping robbing the sea of its tithe of souls, the sickness spread like wildfire through the poorer quarters of the town, claiming the lives of old and young alike. By the time the plague had burned itself out, it had killed both Ken's younger brother, Riki, and his mother, who had tirelessly nursed her youngest son through his final illness, only to fall victim herself not long after Riki's death.

Calamity

_The first sign_ of the catastrophe that would tear the surviving members of the Serrula family apart was oldest daughter Sae's sudden, seldom-explained absences from home, which were soon followed by a marked improvement in her standard of dress, and the family's standard of living. It was obvious even to Ken, at twelve summers, what the cause of their change of fortune must be - and yet their father appeared to turn a blind eye to Sae's foolhardiness.What neither Naohiko or anyone else could ignore was the rise of the red moon, Dalamud. And yet it was not this either that spurred the change in Ken's father. That was the death of his own mother, Fusae, from old age. Losing her too was more than he could bear: it seemed he was finally feeling the weight of the burdens he'd shouldered in the hope of ensuring his loved ones' safety. With the Garlean presence in Minato dwindling in response to a threat overseas, Naohiko sold his boat to a shipmate, and threw his all behind a desperate plan to flee with his surviving children to free Hingashi. It didn't work.Tipped off by an informant, who turned out to be Kouichirou bas Angustus's father, a platoon of Legionaries met the family on the beach on the far side of Minato Bay. Though Marin managed to flee in the confusion, Naohiko, Sae and Ken were arrested along with the two smugglers they had paid to facilitate their passage. Ken, who knew very little of his father's plans, and who at thirteen was too young to be of any value as a laborer - though he would make a Legionary, given a little more time to grow - was released into his grandfather's custody after questioning: his father and sister were not so fortunate. Sae was sent to a labor camp in the far north; as for his father, Ken can only presume him dead.

Conscription

_After his release,_ Ken was apprenticed to a Minato paper maker - a man who had lost several students to Garlemald already and was beginning to despair of ever being able to pass on his craft. Harboring no illusions as to their long-term prospects, neither master or pupil were particularly surprised when the arrangement was brought to an abrupt end by Ken's conscription, via round-up, shortly after his fifteenth nameday.On commencement of his enlistment in the Legions, Ken was taken with his fellow conscripts to Castrum Convallis, in central Doma, where he was discovered to be aether-sensitive, but to possess no innate gift for magicks. After completing basic training, he was enlisted as an Eques in the XIVth Imperial Legion, under the command of Legatus Gaius van Baelsar, and deployed with half his graduating class to the Garlean province of Ala Mhigo, where he joined the VIIth Cohort in the garrison at Castellum Aeris.Based in the hinterlands of Ala Mhigo, Castellum Aeris was constructed about a former copper mine abandoned as unprofitable during the reign of King Theodric the Mad, which the invading Garleans reopened and repurposed for the processing of cobalt ore via forced labor. Though its mineral value was indisputable, the Castellum itself was considered something of a backwater. What little action the VIIth Cohort saw was largely limited to culling the local vilekin, ensuring that supply lines stayed open, and the occasional skirmish with Resistance forces hoping the outpost's remoteness would enable them to strike a blow against the Imperials.Ken was stationed at Castellum Aeris for three years, from the ages of fifteen to eighteen. He was a good soldier, something which surprised and chagrined him in equal measure, and quickly accumulated a small, but close-knit circle of friends and comrades-in-arms. During the course of his duties, he also made the acquaintance of a young Decurion named Akira pyr Scapus and, following a Resistance attack on a Reaper detachment that left its pilot crippled and saw Ken claiming his first kill, the two began a clandestine relationship.The fragile and tentative peace he'd found couldn't last, and it didn't. Harrying actions by the XIVth aimed at Resistance sympathizers left the Qiqirn, seeing their homes destroyed and their people casually killed by an enemy who believed them mere pests who happened to be in the way, desperate enough to summon an Eikon to avenge them. Taking the form of a vast, fire-breathing vilekin, the Qiqirn quickly lost control of their furious "god". Lashing out at worshiper and heretic alike the Eikon, dubbed Salamander, was a threat far beyond the Empire's capacity to ignore. The garrison at Aeris, closest to hand, were ordered to engage the monster - and quickly. This decision was to prove disastrous.The initial deployment of legionaries, subject to eikonic enthrallment on their advance, were tempered by the beast and turned on their former comrades. Ordered to continue the assault in spite of the pleas of the Centurion on the ground, Ken's manipule was sent in as part of a second wave. He would not understand why Salamander's influence had no effect upon him - though this did nothing to spare him from the Eikon's flames. Regaining consciousness hours later amid scenes of devastation, he found the battle over, Salamander having vanished without a trace.Ken didn't exactly desert from the Legions, not really. He simply got up and walked away.

Desertion

_Wounded and alone,_ it wasn't long before Ken was forced to go to ground. He took shelter in a natural cave by a wide but shallow river, venturing out only for food and water - then, as his injuries began to overwhelm him, not venturing out at all. There his story could easily have ended, had it not been for a woman named Asfrid aan Brand.Three years prior Asfrid Brand and her husband, Hromund, had suffered the loss of their only child, Wyat, after he was conscripted into the Imperial Legions and sent overseas. After spotting Ken scavenging for food, only to run and hide when he realized he'd been seen, she found herself unable to get him out of her mind. With the reluctant help of her husband, she managed to discover his hiding-place and with it Ken himself, on the verge of succumbing to his wounds. Though she knew him by his uniform to be a Garlean legionary, she persuaded Hromund to take him in, believing they owed it to the missing Wyat to be kind.Ken had largely accepted that he was going to die; he found his survival harder to comprehend. Recovering in the care of the Brands, he couldn't fathom why they should have risked themselves to save his life. Asfrid, who had turned to her faith in Rhalgr after her son disappeared, saw His hand in their meeting: she was convinced that he had been spared for a purpose, and that the Destroyer would guide him toward it. As for Hromund, although he lacked his wife's faith, he quickly grew fond of the young man, sensing in him the same fire he'd seen in the freedom fighters of his youth.

Once healed, Ken felt he could no longer expose the Brands, who he had come to care for as family, to the risks that came with harboring a deserter. With their blessing, he joined a refugee caravan heading toward free Eorzea, and with the help of the Resistance crossed the border to the Black Shroud through the tunnels beneath Baelsar's Wall. Making his way to Gridania, a destination chosen solely because he had the coin to reach it, Ken signed up with the Adventurer's Guild as a sellsword, in the hope that here he could start his life anew.

Basics

Appearance

Family

First Impressions

_On initial acquaintance,_ Ken appears straightforward, open and - for all he is possessed of something of a temper - largely untroubled. Much of that is even true.Outdoorsy and athletic, fond of food and children, Ken appears to be a perfectly ordinary nineteen year old. Naive but not innocent, he's something of an open book: lively and aggressively optimistic, extroverted, impulsive, easily riled, occasionally oblivious and almost entirely terrible with romance. For all his usual cheerful confidence, he's pretty easy to embarrass and blushes readily when flustered. He only ever lies by omission.

In Action

_Earnest by nature,_ Ken sets a lot of stake in living up to his own principles - something he secretly fears he really isn't very good at. He hates sitting idle, and always seems to be in the middle of doing something: a striver, focused and ambitious and hardworking. He dreams big, but he is practical at heart and unafraid to put in the hard graft it might take to see dreams realized. A practical person, Ken prefers working with his hands to more sedentary or scholarly pursuits, and does not have a lot of time for book-learning. He is straightforward, sometimes overly so, and would far rather cut straight to the heart of a problem than, to his eyes, waste time fussing with the strands. He sees the world simply, for good or for ill.As someone who is both brutally honest and blunt to a fault, Ken is capable of being something of a social liability. Straightforward, outspoken and painfully sincere, he is prone to making snap judgments and sticking with them to the bitter end and can be relied upon to say exactly what's on his mind, regardless of whether or not anyone wants to know, or even if it's a good idea for him to open his mouth. He lacks, however, both the foresight and the malicious nature he'd need for calculated cruelty: he is inconsiderate, not ill-intentioned; clueless rather than deliberately callous. At times like these he isn't trying to be unkind or offensive, and finds it hard to realize he is being, but his tendency to speak without thinking first can be hurtful all the same.A self-proclaimed "action guy", he prefers to act first and think about it later, if he thinks about it at all. This leaves Ken prone to frustration when idle, and gives him a tendency toward recklessness which is only heightened when under stress. He reacts instinctively in a crisis and has the kind of mind that considers setting something on fire to be a great distraction tactic, without much regard for what might happen after that. Planning, for Ken, is something for other people to tell him about. He is nonetheless an excellent team player and, though he would never admit it, he is at his happiest when presented with a clear objective to accomplish, and clear orders as to how to go about it.

Hachiko

_Doggedly loyal and_ prepared to give his all to protect the people he cares about, Ken is not someone to have as an enemy, but he believes the best about those he considers friends. Once he has put his faith in someone - and he is, unfortunately, not always the best judge of character - it's very, very difficult to convince him to break it. His loyalty isn't simply to people, though: the things he believes in are just as important to him, and he's perfectly able to set those above the people he cares for should his hand be forced.At heart, Ken is an optimist. Despite his circumstances, in spite of everything he has seen, he still wants to believe the world is a kind place, that most people are well-meaning, and that good things happen to those who deserve it. It's something of a forlorn belief, but he clings to it. Despite knowing it is very unlikely he will ever be able to lead a quiet, happy life, and not really feeling he deserves it even if he could, it's something Ken believes the good and the gentle are entitled to. He's prepared to fight and fight hard for both the friends and the strangers he believes deserve happiness, and who could still achieve it.Ken's temper could only be described as 'short'. It's not particularly difficult to irritate him; he also has a tendency to fall back on defensive anger when he's flustered or upset. It's far more unusual for him to stay angry for very long. Though he can be extremely hostile toward strangers and frequently loses his temper with the people he cares for, in these cases his ire has no genuine, long-lasting malice behind it. Those he hates, however, he hates full-heartedly: when crossed, he is capable of being both vicious and vengeful, and determinedly so. When directed and channeled, such as in combat, Ken's anger can make him a formidable foe. He's the kind of person you want on your side in a fight. As long as he's still standing he won't give up, and if he goes down at all he'll go down swinging.A few goodbyes too many have left Ken with pronounced abandonment issues. He has no talent for solitude and dreads the thought of ending up alone - something he feels he will bring on himself by being, essentially, unlovable. He finds letting go of the people he cares about extremely difficult, and is prepared to go to extreme lengths to stay with them. For all his devotion, however, Ken is ultimately a survivor: he's dealt with a lot of uncertainty and unwanted change in his life, and is no stranger to sudden reversals of fortune. While he might not like letting go, if that's the price of survival, he's quite prepared to pay it.

Getting Good

_Ken is tenacious._ Less politely, he's stubborn as hell. This tendency has permeated almost everything he is and does, regardless of whether or not he'd want it that way. He finds it almost impossible to walk away from a challenge, still less to back down once he's started, even when it becomes obvious he's in way over his head. His belief in his ability to hold his own is justified, but it is fueled by a bone-deep insecurity that has him fearing being seen as helpless, incapable or, worst of all, as weak.Ken has a perfectionist streak, something which he finds both a blessing and a curse. Put simply, he wants to be good at the things he does, even when those things are difficult, dangerous and have been forced upon him. This has not proved to be a recipe for peace of mind. He often feels quite profoundly guilty about the things that he has done, and he knows that he can't claim they were all simply in the name of survival. And yet it was never enough simply to be a soldier: he wanted, and he chose, to be a good one.

Basics

Appearance

about me

Seraph | PS5 | 7.0 Compliant

FFXIV superfan and Eureka obsessive; something of a lore nerd, though hopefully not too toxic about it. A Realm Reborn advocate and general Stormblood enjoyer. Lover of all things Ancient, but not an Ascian apologist; fascinated by the Garleans, but not in the Triumph of the Will way. Bleeds Twin Adder yellow.

Ken Hidaka

Weiss Kreuz | Gluhen | Side B

_19 year old professional killer stuck in late-nineties Retail Hell. Specializes in flower arranging, father issues, disembowelment and Catholic guilt. When not arranging flowers or murdering people for money, Ken is fond of kids, soccer, J-pop and cookery._

WEISS KREUZ © Kyoko Tsuchiya and Project Weiss. All rights reserved.

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_LODESTONE:_ Ken Hidaka | Seraph
_CARRD:_ Scions and Sinners
_PSN:_ MightyPong
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