Kotarō Shimura

Kotarō Shimura (志村小太郎, Shimura Kotarō) is a shinobi of Konohagakure created by Sir Aether and a member of Team Cho Li.

Background
Kotarō was born into the famed Shimura clan and went to the Academy with Seina, Saya and Takeo.

Around two years before graduating the Academy at the age of ten, Maeda Shimura, Kotarō's mother, died under mysterious circumstances, something that Kotarō's two brothers Nakamura and Nagao blame him for. Also around this time a rumor started that his father Takeda killed Maeda, though it was never proven that he killed her.

During his Academy days, Kotarō had an unfriendly rivalry with Seidō Sarutobi, with both regarding the other with disdain. At one point he and Seidō got into a fight for unknown reasons that eventually got broken up by Inoran Yamanaka.

He eventually graduated the Academy and was placed on a genin team consisting of Seina Hoshina, Saya Kohaku and Takeo Nara and with Cho Li Akimichi as his sensei. Not long after the team's formation they were sent to fight in the Second Shinobi World War.

Personality
Kotarō has been described by many as a very quiet individual, rarely getting into conversations unless spoken too first. He also has a bit of an inferiority complex, often saying that he is the weakest of Team Cho Li. Because of this, he often tries to make himself "useful", such as hunting for food, or intel gathering. However Kotarō does care for the safety of his teammates, especially Seina, who he has a crush on, though he struggles to express it. This is shown several times when he protects his teammates from harm, usually at the cost of himself getting injured. Kotarō also has a bit of pride as he hates it when he has to be carried by Saya when his gets injured. Eventually, he begins to see his team as his family and became more than willing to sacrifice his own life if it would save theirs.

Kotarō has been shown that he takes food very seriously and hates it when he or others waste even the smallest scrape and in the event that his teammates do not finish any of their meals, he will eat the rest. Kotarō has also been shown to love eating turkey and when hunting, will seek them out if there are any in the area even if it takes longer to get than normal. This however has caused him to return to his (usually) hungry teammates later than planned, to their annoyance.

Kotarō has also been shown to be on bad terms with his father and brothers, to the point that he never told them that he was going to fight in the Second Shinobi World War. When they did find out, Kotarō only told them to "go to hell" and that he does not see them as family. Kotarō does not talk about why he hates his father and brothers with anybody, not even his teammates. However, Kotarō has been shown to get along with his uncle Danzō very well considering that he is the only one in his family that he told that he was leaving for the Land of Wind to fight in the war.

While in the academy Kotarō had an unfriendly rivalry with Seidō and regarded him with disdain. The two would argue often, though they only came to blows once. He has also been shown to dislike the members of Team Matsuo save Nuno Hyūga whom he sees as a nice person. Specifically he sees Akari as a violent and malicious individual, Satori as annoying with his riddles and Suzume butting into business that is not hers.

Appearance
Kotarō possess fair skin, green eyes and spiky, neck length black hair. Kotarō also has two bangs that reach down his face. He normally wears a black, long sleeved, hooded jacket with a plain, white, long-necked shirt underneath along with black shinobi pants. Kotarō also wears purple war-paint around his eyes and has several markings on his cheeks with this same paint. While on missions during the Second Shinobi World War, Kotarō began to wear a black colored, hooded cloak in place of his jacket.

Abilities
While considered having below average skills in the academy, Kotarō's skills improved drastically while being a part of Team Cho Li and during the Second Shinobi World War. Kotarō has also been shown to have a high tolerance to pain, being able to fight opponents even when severely injured, or having multiple kunai stuck in him. He has also been shown to have very good hearing.

Bukijutsu
Kotarō is very skilled in Bukijutsu, utilizing a tantō in combat. Using his tantō, Kotarō is able to cut chakra threads and when combined with Wind natured chakra flow, he can sever human limbs with one stroke. He has also been shown to be able to throw his tantō like a kunai in order to momentarily distract an enemy or to secretly arm one of his teammates.

Kotarō is also well versed in the use of explosive tags, being able to store and unseal a large pile of them in order to blow them towards an enemy in order to cause a devastating explosion.

He is also skilled in the use of wire strings, being able to create simple snares, complex yet hard to detect traps and as mediums for certain Wind Release techniques.

Nature Transformation
Kotarō was proficient in using Wind Release taught to him by Cho Li. He could gather wind around his tantō and launch it as a sharp blade or use that same wind to instead create a makeshift scimitar like weapon or make lethal fan blades with shuriken. He can also create a gust of wind to increase the speed and killing power of weapons like shuriken and kunai with just a clap of his hands. Due to his chakra nature Kotarō is overall a dangerous short to mid range fighter.

Cooperation Ninjutsu
Kotarō has been shown to collaborate with his teammates very well, namely Takeo. Due to being a front line fighter, Kotarō often allows Takeo to connect to his shadow to his own as a catalyst for Takeo to use his other shadow techniques. Kotarō also works well with Seina, often distracting opponents while she blindsides them while they are focused on him. Kotarō has also been shown to work well with Saya, with Saya using her special genjutsu and then having Kotarō finish them off while their senses are distorted. Along with the rest of his team, Kotarō has developed the Diamond Formation, showing their teamwork skills and understanding of their own weaknesses and their teammates' strengths. Eventually he and his team developed the Diamond Spear Formation, which incorporates Cho Li's attacks along with their own.

Other Skills
Kotarō is also been stated to have very good hunting and gathering skills, being able to bring down a wild boar by himself and find several wild berries to eat in a short time frame. He has also been shown to be able to move very quietly often going on tracking missions with Takeo. Unlike Takeo, Kotarō's tracking skills more involve woodcraft than chakra sensing and due to these skills Kotarō is able to track wild animals or people based on their tracks or trail they leave. He has also been shown to cover his and his teammates tracks, so that they could not be tracked in the traditional manner. He is also versed in long-term survivability in the wilds due to his experience in the Second Shinobi World War. Kotarō has also shown the ability to transfer his own chakra into others, though at first he is not very efficient at it, being able to transfer only a little at a time; eventually he is able to control how much he transfers at a much more efficient rate.

Team Meeting Arc
After graduating the Academy, Kotarō is placed on Team Cho Li. His first encounter with Cho Li is her telling him to meet her the next day for a one on one meeting. The next day Kotarō meets Cho Li at a restaurant and answers a few questions about his abilities, hobbies and other things before eating. Only after finishing his food does Kotarō realize that it was drugged and is knocked out. Later Kotarō wakes up tied to a tree and wonders what is going on. Eventually Kotarō managed to get one arm free and used it to get his tantō and cut his restraints. After breaking free, Kotarō begins to think on why his sensei would drug him. He then begins to wonder around the area before being found by Seina.

Later after finding his other two teammates Saya and Takeo, Kotarō tells about his meeting with Cho Li. Kotarō along with the rest of his team start to search for a way back to Konoha, but they ends up lost instead. Listening to Saya's suggestion, Kotarō along with Takeo begin to look for food, while Seina and Saya look for a place to build shelter and a fire. Later Kotarō abandons his search for food, due to it getting to dark, but on his way back manages to find a large amount of wild berries to bring back, as well as managing to find and catch two rabbits. As Kotarō and his teammates ate around a fire, they all talked to try and get to know each other better.

Later, Takeo and Seina sense others around them with Saya saying that its likely Cho Li. However a blast of water puts out their fire and the four of them scatter after realizing that they are being attacked. At first Kotarō struggles to evade any attacks, but with some assistance from Seina and Takeo, Kotarō managed to fend off the attackers, though at the cost of his tantō being destroyed. However, he keeps up his offensive with several academy techniques. At one point however, seeing that Seina is about to be attacked, Kotarō takes the attack that would have hit her and ends up with a kunai stuck in his arm. Saya later warned Kotarō and the others that the enemy is using certain Taijutsu techniques and with her assistance is able to block or evade their attacks, even with his injured arm, despite not being very good in taijutsu.

With the fight continuing, all four helped each other when an enemy began to overpower them. Eventually the enemy stopped their offensive and disappeared, allowing Kotarō to catch his breath and wonder what happened along with the rest of his team. After Kotarō had his arm healed by Seina the four decide they needed a watch, with Seina taking the first shift. Kotarō would later take over for the second shift. While on watch, Kotarō would began to think that he was useless to the team, due to being needed to be saved the most after his tantō was broken and even began to worry that he would get (in his opinion) his stronger teammates killed. Eventually Kotarō passed his shift on to Saya and went to sleep where he had a nightmare about his teammates dying.

The next morning the four began to try and find their way back to the village, when Seina and Takeo sensed someone approaching. Kotarō and the rest of the team are then greeted by Cho Li, who tells them about the survival test in order to see their skills in action and that they all passed. Later after returning to the village, Kotarō talked with Cho Li in private about his frustrations about being the weakest member of the team (in his opinion). After their discussion, she agrees to teach him some ninjutsu after they find out he has an affinity for Wind Release.

Several weeks after the teams "test" Kotarō is seen practicing with his teammates Seina, Takeo and Saya. Later when Cho Li comes to talk to them she tells the team of four they are going to participate in the Second Shinobi World War and that they leave for the Land of Wind in two days. Kotarō unlike his teammates does not say much about this revelation, but instead just thinks to himself why they are being sent to war so soon after graduating the academy. Kotarō would later tell this revelation to his uncle Danzō who would give him advice on how to stay alive and then gave him a new tantō made of a metal that can be infused through "chakra flow." Kotarō then contemplated telling the news to his father and brothers, but decided against it.

Later when Team Cho Li is getting ready to leave, the families of the team greet them to say goodbye at the gate. Kotarō sees his brothers, but after a short conversation, begins to argue with them and eventually tells them to "go to hell", all while his team is watching. When asked about his family situation, Kotarō does not answer. The team then begins their journey to the Land of Wind.

Land of Wind Arc
After a few days of traveling, Kotarō and the rest of Team Cho Li arrive at the Konaha base camp, where they are assigned various duties around the camp, with Kotarō helping prepare the food. After a few days, Team Cho Li, minus Cho Li are tasked with gathering some herbs for poison antidotes from a nearby area a few miles away. After getting ready, Kotarō meets his teammates to gather the herbs.

Eventually the four reach the site of the herbs and begin to collect them at first unaware that they are being watched by three Sunagakure shinobi. However the Suna shinobi eventually get close enough for Takeo and Seina to sense them and manage to warn Kotarō and Saya before they are attacked. Thanks to their warning, Kotarō was able to avoid a poison mist attack from one of Kōsa's puppets. He then engages Kōsa with assistance from Takeo joining him after Kotarō's first attack, however he fails due to a second puppet acting as a "bodyguard". After failing a second time to attack Kōsa, Takeo whispers a plan into his ear. Kotarō then attacks a third time with Takeo connecting his shadow to Kotarō's. Once Kotarō gets close enough to the puppet Mamushi, Takeo uses his Shadow Sewing Technique to immobilize it and destroy its hidden internal mechanisms, while Kotarō is now able to attack the puppet Gajō and manages to destroy it, enraging Kōsa. Kotarō and Takeo are then blinded by Kōsa's Wind Release technique, but thanks to Takeo's sensing abilities, Kotarō manages to discern Kōsa's position and kill him, but is cut by Kōsa's kunai in the process.

After killing Kōsa, Kotarō and Takeo move on to assist Seina and Saya, only to see that they both have finished off their opponents. After Seina heals their injuries the four of them agree that they need to get back to camp in case of enemy reinforcements. However just before they leave, Kotarō starts vomiting. To his teammates horror, he realizes that he has been poisoned. After saying this, Takeo rushes to Kōsa's body to look for an antidote. After he returns, unable to find an antidote, he instead grabbed a vial of the poison, while Kotarō collapses barely able to move, with Saya having to carry him back to the Konoha base.

When the four finally reach back to their camp, Kotarō is handed over to the medical team who is given the vial of poison by Takeo. Kotarō spends the next few hours in agony as the medical team attempt to make an antidote, only to fail due to the complexity of the poison. However, due to the timely arrival of Tsunade who was due to pass through the camp on her way to another area, Kotarō has an antidote made for him by her and is cured. After he is recovered enough by the next day, his first visitors are his teammates and Cho Li who are all relieved to see him alive and recovered. Later after fully recovering from the effects of the poison, Kotarō talks to Cho Li asking for more ninjutsu training as well as speed training. His sensei agreed and that his training will begin when the return to Konoha.

Team Training Arc
After returning to Konoha, Kotarō is told by Cho Li to put weights on his legs and to never take them off under any circumstance until she tells him to. After first Kotarō has trouble doing anything more complex than walking, but after a few days, he begins to be able to move around more freely, even with the weights. During this time Kotarō is practicing his Wind Release techniques and manages to learn a few new ones as well. Also during this time, he and Saya help to improve Takeo's confidence by attacking him at random times in order to keep him on his toes.

Later, Kotarō has a sparring session with Saya (who is also undergoing weight training), and notices that not only has his reaction time and speed improved, but so has Saya's overall strength. After their sparring session the two take a break and then decide to ambush Takeo again.

A few days later, during a training session with Saya and Takeo, the three come up with different ways to combine their skills and attacks so that none of them will have to fight alone. Practicing on training dummies, Kotarō opens with his Wind Release: Gale Palm technique to knock it back, while Saya attacks with taijutsu and then Takeo with explosive tags. Then much to his surprise, Seina (who was doing medic training previously) rushes in to decapitate the dummy with her Flying Swallow technique. Realizing that Seina's timing was perfect, they decide to add her part to the attack, and then decide to dub it the Formation One of their newly completed Diamond Formation.

Deciding to practice it again from the beginning, Kotarō and the others accidentally get out of sync, with Kotarō's Gale Palm technique sending Takeo's explosive tags across the training field, with them exploding near another team. The four are then confronted by the genin members of Team Matsuo, consisting of Satori Aburame, Akari Kazeshima, Nuno Hyūga and Suzume Uchiha. Seeing Akari intended to attack them, Kotarō prepares to pull out his tantō only for Satori to calm her down. Eventually he and the rest of Team Cho Li apologize to Team Matsuo and both teams move on to continue training. Later Kotarō gets an idea for a new technique after thinking about how he accidentally blew away Takeo's explosive tags with Wind Release.

Over the next few days, Kotarō practices his new technique (using regular pieces of paper) only to repeatedly fail to get the paper where he wants it. Frustrated that he is unable to get the technique to work properly, throws his tantō at a nearby tree, causing it to get embedded. Thinking about how strait he would have to throw his tantō to get it stuck in the tree, Kotarō thinks up of another technique and decides to tell Seina about his new idea, only to run into Suzume on his way to find her. The two get quickly get into an argument, with Kotarō insulting her deceased teammate Seidō. He is then caught in a genjutsu cast by Suzume and is mentally tortured by her. After she releases the genjutsu out of guilt, Kotarō attacks her before she can apologize. Before either can seriously injure each other, he, along with Suzume are knocked out by Nuno.

Creation and Conception
Kotarō was designed to be part of a collaboration team, taking the role of short to mid range combatant. From the beginning I wanted him to be a tantō wielding, Wind Release user, though being a part of the Shimura clan came latter. His more "negative" personality was meant to differentiate him from his more "positive" teammates and his seriousness about food was to not make him a 100% whiny character. I added the woodcraft skills later to help give him a more "unique" set of abilities. His name comes from Fūma Kotarō and was chosen because it was a historical name much like Danzō's, who I decided to make his uncle.

Overall I think these two musical themes suit him best. The first one is for fits his personality while the second fits his fighting.

Trivia

 * Kotarō is a PreGen OC created by Sir Aether as part of a joint project to fill out the Second Shinobi World War era.
 * According to the databook(s):
 * Kotarō's hobbies are hunting and fishing.
 * Kotarō wants to fight Cho Li and his uncle Danzō.
 * Kotarō's favorite food are fresh berries and anything with turkey in it, while his least favorite is anything with mushrooms or avocados in it.
 * Kotarō's favorite phrase is "Flower, Bird, Wind, Moon" (花鳥風月, Kachou Fuugetsu) which means to experience the beauties of nature, and in doing so to learn about yourself.
 * Kotarō has been stated by several people to be a very good cook with his best dish being onigiri with turkey filling..

Quotes

 * (Introducing himself to his teammates) "My name is Kotarō Shimura. I like hunting and my privacy. Other than that I don't have much else to say.'"
 * (To Cho Li) "I'm useless! I'm on a team with someone who can manipulate shadows, another that can cast powerful genjutsu and someone who possess the Swift Release, while the best I can do is swing a glorified knife!"
 * (To Nakamura and Nagao) "I don't care about you anymore, your deaths would not bring me any sadness whatsoever. To hell with the lot of you."
 * (To his Teammates) "I don't like seeing food go to waste, so I'm not going to let even a smallest amount be tossed away." 
 * (To Takeo) "This is some of the food your brother gave you, and you are giving it to me? Thank you, Takeo."
 * (To Cho Li) "I'm just as useless as ever. The only reason I'm alive is because Takeo was there to back me up. If not for him, I would be lying dead in the sands. If I don't want to keep being a burden to my team, please, help me get stronger."
 * (To Saya) "Your strength has improved a lot since the last time we sparred. It feels like you're going to break my arms when I block."
 * (To Seina)