New OC alert!!! Decided to make the first Master of Thorns :3 that precedes Akako! He fought in the Serpentine War alongside the Elemental Alliance!! More details below teehee!! There's doodles sprinkled throughout this post!!
Masuo Mitsutake was the first Master of Thorns ☝️ He fought alongside the Elemental Alliance in the Serpentine Wars and slowly lost his humanity throughout the war. The elemental master soon started to see himself as a tool, merely by the nature of his element. And while he does try his best to keep the spirits of the Alliance up, he does tend to struggle to take his own advice.
He grew up in a very small village, and in that village he lived on a farm for his entire youth, taking care of animals with his parents :3 It founded the mindset he took into the war with him, which was not to push his life further than it was worth. He values life strongly, every part of it, life and death both. Over his years he had seen animals suffer and die again and again, he found it to be cruel to keep those on deaths doorstep alive, where acts of heroism only prolonged their pain. It was more of a justice to let them leave this plane, in his eyes. He wanted everyone to have just as much of an honourable death as they did an honourable life. And so when the reality dawned on him that he could lose his life in this war- or become extremely injured- he simply wanted his wish of letting him slip away to be honoured. Basically whatever a DNR was back then. He didn't want to be resuscitated.
And oh boy was he in for a big shock.
On a mission, intel starts leaking through that the Anacondrai have discovered some ancient artifacts; ones which could grant immortality if utilised. On top of their sheer invincibility, the Elemental Alliance couldn't let the Serpentine have a single trump card over them, and so an operation was initiated to steal and hopefully destroy these medallions in hopes of evening the playing field.
Masuo was part of this operation.
All seemed to go as planned at first, they had infiltrated the Serpentine base, and were just about to swipe the medallions for themselves when a battle broke out.
Masuo would not make it out of this operation.
He was injured. Badly. Bleeding out in front of his closest friends while the battle raged around them. One of those friends- Wu- determined to do something to save his life, thrust a medallion into his wound, praying to his own father to get his friend out of here in one piece.
Masuo would not make it out of this operation.
At least not the way he wanted to.
After he wakes up and is caught up with everything, his bond with Wu and co. quickly deteriorates. Like. Why didn't you stop him? You know I didn't want to be brought back, why did you go along with it? Not only was he brought back to life, but he would never be able to die. That medallion was lodged in there. It wasn't coming out anytime soon. He had made such strong peace with dying, and now he had to come to terms with how he could never have that. Ever. Masuo Mitsutake was not allowed to die. Masuo Mitsutake was immortal.
As if matters weren't bad enough, since there was a brief period of death scattered through the chaos, his elemental powers seemed to have escaped his grasp, no longer answering to his commands no matter how hard he tried. Nevertheless he still felt the need to give something to the war. He was immortal now. It would be a waste to sit back and do nothing, after all.
He took a step back from the frontline, dedicating himself to protecting the people instead. If he was ever injured he would simply go back to Ishani, one of the few friends he managed to keep up with during his spiral. (Ishani belongs to @jesterificharlequin I can't remember if they posted about them at all... Ishani my love...) Despite their words of advice and them urging him to relearn the concept of self preservation, Masuo brushed their words aside, figuring that the people were more important than a few battle scars. After all, he was immortal, why should someone else take the bullet when he could?
Masuo struggled a lot after the Serpentine War was won. While there was great pride in being able to protect Ninjago, a lonely question stayed prevalent in his head: what now? He had given both his body and his life to the war, he had seen so much and now it's all over. He didn't see himself living normally, even in his hometown. He had been stripped of his autonomy and now he couldn't even die the way he wanted to. His mental health starts taking a toll on him and suddenly he becomes a recluse; uninterested in maintaining his body if there aren't any consequences anyways. He stopped eating, he stopped drinking, he stopped going outside. He stumbled back home and as soon as his head hit his pillow he didn't see a reason to get back up.
It would be years before he picked himself back up again, a shell of the man he once was.
Once he had slowly gained his power back, and his clothes began fitting again, he decided to pay a surprise visit to the monastery completely in the dark as to everything that had occurred the past few years.
Whatever it was, he didn't expect it to be this bad.
The previous master of earth was gone, as was the master of ice. Most had gone home. Most had started families. Even Garmadon- who was known for his itch for adventure- had settled down with Misako. Everyone had started new lives for themselves, all accounted for but Ishani.
And so Wu broke the news.
Masuo's closest friend was gone.
They had been banished from the realm.
Masuo had never been told.
As if Wu and Masuo's friendship wasn't strained enough from the Medallion, this would be just about the final stake to wedge the gap further between them. Masuo left promptly after, not interested in keeping in touch with him.
Erm it gets a lot more vague from here. He's low-key forced to learn to live life again. I say he goes back home and starts helping his family out again on the farm!!
He doesn't really appear again until Thorns Chapter I think? He also shows up in Illusion Chapter!! (Jesterifics fanseason :3 )
While him and Akako aren't related I say he would have a sort of uncle-niece dynamic with her! They're quite silly and Akako needs to learn to not be moody and whimsymaxx some more.
I think Masuo would see himself and Ishani in Hayal and Akako. They have a really tight friendship :( It's really apparent in the illusions chapter too where wounds are still fresh and he's watching Hayal slowly dying. At the very least he knows this time around the master of thorns is here to help the master of illusions out!! Yippee!!
