Saya Soyokaze


 * yet to be finished |

Saya Soyokaze (ソヨカゼサヤ, Soyokaze Saya) is a Naruto OC created by toomuchfandoms. She is a chūnin-level kunoichi of Konohagakure, and both she and her ninneko partner Tora are members of Team Kotori.

Background
Saya was born to her parents, and lived quite a normal childhood before she attended the academy.

Before attending the academy, her father Takashi and big brother Arata trained her in their family fighting techniques, mainly introducing her to her Wind chakra. This was also when Arata gave Saya her ninneko partner, Tora, to take care of. The two quickly grew inseparable.

The day she attended the academy was the first day she would get in any sort of major conflict; she got mocked on her dress (her mother made her wear it) and a fight would ensue. The rest of her academy time went somewhat smoothly; she managed well, having already trained for a portion of her life. Theory and exams were difficult, however.

After graduating the academy she was placed on a genin team with Akira Kita and Matsuko Fujii under the jonin tutelage of Kotori. Matsuko was initially accepting and welcoming towards her other teammates, but Akira thought that Saya was too weak, referring to her as "a flop." The two hotheads often collided in opinions and such, making their teamwork hard, and to add Kotori, another stubborn one to the mix, it was not the ideal situation.

Soon after her first mission it was noted that even when she suffered only small to medium cuts, she lost a notable amount of blood, since the cuts didn't wound up. The medics back at the village also told her that this unknown disease causes rapid fatigue, which had been a problem ever since Saya started training with her father. She was given a medication that fades the fatigue, and she was told to always carry Blood Increasing Pills with her.

Sometime during the timeskip she was experimenting with her Scorch Release and burned her right arm badly. It managed to be saved, but permanent scars were left on the whole arm. It was at the time when she had just gained confidence on her own body, and this was a major kickback, leading her to cover the arm up with a sleeve.

Personality
Saya is a fairly outgoing personality. She is rarely seen sad, and mostly the negative feeling she lets others see is anger. Sometimes she can be too rash and hyperactive, but these particular traits appear only when she's extremely nervous or frightened. Usually she is generally a rational person. If she is given a situation and enough time to think, she can usually come up with at least a somewhat working plan. The rationality steps aside also when she is annoyed or agitated in any way. She does not hesitate to attack or at least show what she is capable of; she has a tendency of showing off. She's often shown entering a battle situation by jumping down dramatically from a treetop and striking her scythe blade into the ground. She is also fiercely protective of her friends and family. This combined with her tendency to get riled up easily has resulted in scraps in the past and will probably result in scraps in the future too.

She is pretty foul-mouthed, and in a battle situation gets easily fired up and verbal. That could be counted as a strategy, psychological warfare, although she doesn't exactly use it as one. Even when not in a battle situation, she uses long sentences and multiple words to emphasize her point. She is confident and has faith in herself, sometimes even too much. She knows her limits, though; if she feels something is dangerous and too much for her abilities, she won't go and try. In Part I she was very insecure with her body, and always covered it up. However, she appeared to lose this trait during the timeskip, and is now more comfortable in her own skin.

Appearance
Saya is an fair-skinned average girl of fairly light bodybuild. She has light blue pupilless eyes and orangeish-red hair, which she wears on a high ponytail, hair braided in a way so it falls partly on the right side of her forehead. Her hair falls just below her shoulder

In Part I she wore black college pants ending at the knee. She also wore a loose grey tank top and a short sleeved black hoodie on top of it. She had bandages on her knees. Her shoes were almost knee-high brown hunting boots. She wore her blue headband on her neck.

In Part II she changed to a lot more revealing outfit. She wore a grey elastic top showing her stomach. The top had a fishnet top part making it look like a t-shirt. From the right fishnet sleeve continued a loose fully long sleeve of the same material as the shirt. The left sleeve was shorter, skin tight and a darker grey. Her skin-tight short skirt was from the same elastic fabric as the shirt. Underneath the skirt she wore dark grey shorts ending mid-thigh. She wore fishnet leg warmers with grey standard shinobi footwear. She had bandages on her left arm. Her headband was pink, and she wore it on her hips as a belt of sort. When off duty, she is seen wearing an origibally white turned grey hoodie and black knee-length college pants. During the Fourth Shinobi World War she donned the standard Konoha shinobi outfit, complete with the Allied Shinobi Forces forehead protector on her forehead.

Abilities
Saya is preferrably a short to medium-range fighter, because of her jutsu and weapon of choice. She'd rather stay out of long-range combat, because her jutsu isn't optimal for that. She prefers ambush attacks, and a hit-and-run-technique.

Chakra and physical prowess
Although she is a relatively small kunoichi, training with the scythe requires physical strength, and she has that from training long enough. She has also trained in boosting her physical power with chakra. Her stamina isn't all that great, though, and that's why she relies mostly in fast and powerful attacks that have the potential to end a battle once and for all. This applies to her chakra as well; her chakra reserves aren't all that great. That's why she often tries to figure out a working plan before attacking.

Bukijutsu
Saya has been practicing with the scythe for many years, and could cautiously be called a master by some. She wields the scythe as an entirely solitary weapon, but often uses Wind Release jutsu to amplify the cutting power of the blade. She is highly accurate with the blade, and she's been shown cutting a flying twig into three parts with little effort.

Sensory abilities
Saya herself has no special sensory abilities, but her companion does. Her ninneko partner called Tora can sense chakra by smell and, if close enough, by the feel on her whiskers. Tora is not a fighter, and so prefers to keep out of direct combat.

Nature Transformation
Saya can use two of the five chakra natures, Fire Release and Wind Release, the latter being her primary chakra nature. Her jutsu mainly revolves around Nature Transformation, as she has mastered and developed multiple Wind jutsu. She is also skilled in utilizing her Wind chakra for minor tasks, like

Summoning Jutsu
Saya learns to summon cougars somewhere during the timeskip. The summon seen most often is a particularly large cougar called Kenta, who Saya usually calls when extra help is needed in either battling, tracking or in an ambush situation. Kenta, unlike Tora, is more of a battler, and has been seen restraining large opponents with ease.

Kekkei Genkai
Saya possesses a kekkei genkai capable of evaporating all moisture in one's body, known as the Scorch Release. She is good at using the few jutsu she has developed, but prefers not to use it; she does not like the sight of the desiccated corpses the kekkei genkai is capable of. During the Fourth Shinobi World War she is seen ruthlessly attacking the miniature clones of the Ten-Tails with Scorch Release: Inferno Flamethrower. This implies that she has no problem using tbe kekkei genkai, she just usually chooses not to.

Taijutsu
Being a petite kunoichi and not having trained particulary in taijutsu, Saya does not use it frequently. To fill in the hole in her skills she has developed her own fighting style revolving around her size, speed and flexibility. She uses unique and often unpredictable tactics, like going limp in a grip and then taking the opponent by surprise.

Chūnin Exams
Though Saya had made brief appearances before, she made her début during the Chūnin Exams. When the rookies gathered in a room before the first exam, she is shown watching Ino interact with Sasuke, with a look of mild depreciation. During the written exam she refrained from cheating as long as she could, but eventually she gave in. She used Tora as a distraction to the examiners and then quickly and discreetly copied the answers from Sakura, who was sitting next to her.

During the second phase in the Forest of Death, Saya's team managed to move with little confrontation. Akira was demanding to acquire the Heaven scroll with any means necessary, but Saya and Matsuko were against this. Their team decided to head for the tower and wait, and they managed to snatch a Heaven scroll from one of the teams arriving after them.

In the preliminaries Saya matched up with an unnamed Sunagakure shinobi. Saya emerged victorious from the match, but Tora was critically wounded, as a retaliation from the opposing shinobi. The pure rage and will to protect her partner were the factors that helped her win. After her match she took off to take care of Tora, even though Matsuko urged that she'd get help as well.

During the month between the preliminaries and the finals, Saya trained with Akira, who had also passed the preliminaries, and Kotori.

In the finals, Saya was originally meant to fight Temari, but because of the death of Dosu Kinuta, Temari was matched with Shikamaru, and the winner of that match would then fight Saya. Since the finals were interrupted by the Konoha Crush, Saya never actually fought anyone. She was rendered unconscious by Kabuto's genjutsu, leaving her unable to assist Konoha ninja during the invasion.

Konoha Crush
Saya can be seen at the Third Hokage's funeral alongside the other villagers, mourning his death.

Sasuke Recovery Mission
Since there were not many ninja able to participate after the Konoha Crush, Saya is one of the genin gathered by Shikamaru to bring back Sasuke. She was assigned in the middle of the line, mostly because of Tora's sensory abilities and because her hearing is extraordinary. After Shikamaru's decision to drop people to fight the members of the Sound Four one-on-one, Saya was the last one to leave with Naruto, when Shikamaru decided to fight Tayuya. He is shown thinking that Saya was clever enough to be sent off with Naruto.

When Naruto and Saya eventually caught up to Kimimaro, Saya was first left shell-shocked and out of action as Kimimaro started to show off his abilities. As Sasuke escaped the scene, Saya commanded Naruto to go after him, as she'd rather take on Kimimaro than try and convince Sasuke to come back. Right before Kimimaro had the time to attack, Rock Lee appeared causing moderate confusion. Saya however was more than pleased to find out she had backup, but slightly worried that it was Lee, who was still recovering. After Lee drank his 'medicine' and started using the Drunken Fist, Saya fell back to think of a strategy. When Kimimaro was starting to get the upper hand with his Shikotsumyako, Saya had Tora distract the confused and angered Lee out of the way and then attacked with her Moon Sickle jutsu. This had no effect as his bones just took the attack, allowing him to attack back immediately. Saya held her ground for a short while, and was forced to fall back against the taijutsu master. When eventually Kimimaro used his Cursed Seal Level One, both Saya and an already sobered up Lee were easily overpowered. Her side was pierced by one of Kimimaro's bones, but her ribcage blocked it from puncturing her organs. Kimimaro was about to deliver the final blows, but Gaara appeared just in time to save the two.

After the initial confusion of Gaara coming to help the Konoha shinobi, Saya let Gaara do the fighting. When Kimimaro turned the battlefield into a field of bones, she was left in the middle of the bones. She managed to protect herself with her scythe, only to start rapidly sliding further downward. Kimimaro wasn't interested in her, though, so she had time to climb out of the prison. Disoriented and exhausted she had no clue what was going on, but thankfully Gaara had time to send a sand cloud to help her. She quickly passed out after. Afterwards she was brought to the hospital by the Medic Corps, and she rested there, eventually recovering fully.

Filler Arcs

 * coming soon |

Sunagakure Support Mission
Saya did not participate in the mission to save Matsuri, as Team Kotori was away on another mission. She was briefly seen alongside the rest of her team as they crossed paths with Naruto and Jiraiya, who were just leaving the village. She exchanged a high-five with Naruto and silently promised to become stronger than him before he'd return.

In Naruto's Footsteps: The Friends' Paths
In the anime, about two years after Naruto left the village to train with Jiraiya, Konoha decided to host an early Chūnin Exams alongside Sunagakure. Once entering the exams, Saya and her teammates were randomly split into different rooms to take the written test. She was placed in room 3 with Sakura, Kiba and Tenten. Shikamaru, as proctor, explained that everyone only needs to answer one question on the test, but their team's combined score must equal exactly 100 points to pass. After hearing vibrations through the wall, the members of Konoha 11 figure out that it's an attempt to communicate. However, almost immediately Saya falls under a genjutsu, quickly realizing it's one of Matsuko's pollen based genjutsus. In the illusion her teammate tells Saya and Akira which questions to pick. She is quickly woken up by Sakura, who immediately questions if everything is okay. After time was up, Shikamaru revealed a bonus question, asking the individual which teammate you would sacrifice as a decoy, the person picked being disqualified. The answer also had to be unanimous. Saya pondered about naming herself at first, but leaving the answer blank like her teammates, they ultimately passed the first round. Due to the many participants however, a preliminary round had to be issued which involved a race to Sunagakure where only the first 30 teams to arrive at the destination would qualify for the second phase. Ultimately, her team was among the first 30 teams to make it.

The following day, the second exam began. Like the last exam in Konoha, the teams were each given either a Heaven or Earth scroll and were required to obtain the missing scroll within three days. They were then required to bring the set to the main building in the centre of Demon Desert.

As Team Kotori is moving, they talk about a strategy. Saya suggested that they go with the "get-to-the-building-and-wait-there"-one, as it worked last time, but Akira didn't support that. The two argue about it for a while, until Matsuko steps in and stops them. Instead they decided to go with Matsuko's idea of setting up a trap with her genjutsu. Saya is sent ahead with some of Matsuko's Pollen Genjutsu Bombs to set up a trap, and afterwards she finds a nearby cave to set up camp for the first night. Before her teammates catch up with her, she is attacked by an Sunagakure team, and left in critical condition after they find out she doesn't have the scroll. When Akira and Matsuko finally catch up - courtesy of Kenta, whom Saya had sent to inform them - Akira initially got mad at Saya, but seeing she is unresponsive of his attempts to provoke her, the two get helping her with as much as they can. As she gathered her wits enough, she told the two that the trap is ready and functional and that the attacking team should not be close by anymore.

The next morning Matsuko goes to check the trap and comes back with the Earth scroll, urging the others to get moving before the team that walked into the trap wakes up. Team Kotori gets moving, Saya riding on Kenta's back, still weak from the attack. As they pass the trap, she immediately recognizes the Sunagakure team that attacked her. Turns out they had now woken up from the genjutsu, and they attack Team Kotori, more furious than before. Akira and Matsuko manage to hold their ground against the three shinobi for a while, allowing Saya to escape as a plan to get the opponents to think she has the scrolls. The opposing team quickly took off to chase her.

Tenchi Bridge Reconnaissance Mission
Saya was first seen in Part II after Naruto returned from successfully saving Gaara. She jumped down from a rooftop and Tora stated that she smelled someone familiar. Saya almost immediately commented that even though Naruto had been training, she is still a rank above him. With subtle reluctance Naruto asked her to go on a mission to find Sasuke with him. She turned him down because of another mission that had already been assigned to her team.

Trivia

 * The name "Saya" could mean "swift arrow" or refer to the sheat of a sword. The name "Soyokaze" means "breeze."
 * According to the databook(s):
 * Saya's hobby is taking walks.
 * Saya wishes to fight her brother Arata.
 * Saya's favorite food is apples, and her least favorite food is yudofu.
 * Saya has completed __ official missions in total: __ D-rank, __ C-rank, __ B-rank, __ A-rank, __ S-rank.
 * Saya's favorite word is
 * The nickname "Soysauce" comes from when she was misheard when introducing herself in the Academy, and it has carried on, sometimes used as an insult.
 * text

Quotes

 * (To Kiba) "Do I look like the type of a person who would, in this situation, give a damn?"
 * (To Arata) "I mean, I'm like a rose; pretty redhead. And I will make you bleed. Or whatever."
 * (To Arata before the Fourth Shinobi World War) "I could say something deep, but you just go and fuck 'em up."
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Reference
All art is mine (toomuchfandoms) unless stated otherwise. Some images have used images of Maka Albarn as reference. The image of Saya as a child is an edited screenshot, credit goes to the Naruto animators.