Haru Shiba (The Red Bandit)

How bout you, me, and a dozen of my closest friends take this outside?

☆Personal Information☆
Full Name: (Haru Shiba)
Codename: (The Red Bandit)
Title: (None)
Nickname(s): (None)
Age: (32.)
Gender: (Male)
Race: (Human Unempowered)
Ethnicity: (Japanese)
Orientation/Sexual preference: (Heterosexual)
Blood Type: (AB+)

☆Appearance☆
General Appearance: (The first impression Haru gives is definitely of one that doesn’t want to be forgotten or mistaken. His painted hair and nails, eccentric personality and multitudinous piercings and tattoos definitely mark him as memorable, and even the way he holds himself exaggerates his already demanding presence. When he walks in a room, he’ll do whatever necessary to capture and contain the attention of all individuals in the room. Normally this involves doing something crazy like drugs or a triple backflip or the president’s daughter. And he manages to this all while portraying an easy confidence that most people try to cultivate all their lives.

His style can best be described as “he has none.” He wears whatever suits him for the moment, and while most of the time this is a pair of jeans or short and a tee shirt, he can oft be found in suits, slacks and button ups, women dresses- whatever the situation requires. Admittedly, the suits he has barely seem to be worn and that’s because the only time he attends parties is to rip them off. The styles he wears his hair in are just as varied as his outfits and fit the outfit he’s in. Fancy jewelry adorns him, rings and his piercings being replaced with the frequency of morse code.

Height: (5’6)
Weight: (110 lbs)
Eye color(s): (Silver)
Face shape: (Pointy)
Body build: (Slim)
Extra extremities: (None)
Hair color(s): (Though his natural hair color is silver, Haru has taken the liberty to dye it a variety of colors. Pink is the predominant color, though liberal amounts of blue and green streak his head. A wave of white runs through his bangs, framing the left side of his head with a hand of snow.)
Hair length: (Very, very long)
Hair style: (He wears his hair in a pretty traditional style, fitting for a noble, despite the lack of traditional coloring. It falls unimpeded about his shoulders save for his bangs which raise to frame his face.)
Complexion: (Very pale, like most of his ilk, more of a reminder of his nighttime prowling than any genetic predisposition.)
Discerning Features: (Haru has many piercings. Three on his right ear, two on his left. A ring is pierced through his septum. Occasionally visible is the piercing on his tongue as well. Additionally, on his right arm webs crisscross it, tattooed across his skin as a representation of his obsession. The small of his back boast a bright red spider.)

☆Personality☆
General Personality: (Haru is … a very unique individual. Smart and strong-willed, yet cowardly and deceiving, with a penchant for mischief and villainy, nobody who encounters Haru leaves with the same opinion of him. You either hate him or love him, no middle ground. He is very in your face, forcing his overbearing personality and confidence on nearly everyone he meets. There is no waste of confidence in him, overflowing at the seemed and bursting out his mouth in self-assured, almost nonsensical turns of phrase that either make people laugh or raise their hackles. He does tend to display the role of “class clown”, specifically an unintelligent one, but in reality, Haru is quite cunning and analytical. You don’t get to be a thief by being blind.

Haru is not a good person. He’s not, like, a serial murderer, in fact his hands are clean from that particular sin. Everything else is fair game, though. He’s lied, stolen, cheated. He’s drugged girls to have sex with him and taken drunk girls home to do the same. He’s knocked up teenage girls and never talked to them again. He is the person every father warns their daughter about. And more than these crimes against woman, he’s equally as much of an asshole to men. While most of his interactions with guys involve stealing from them, he also likes to pick fights with them. Not that he’ll ever finish them. He just finds it fun to piss them off.

On top of all of this, Haru is rather lazy, preferring to let his trio of paid assistants take care of everything. This includes fighting for him and even doing his laundry. It’s not that he’s incapable - he’s quite scrappy, as a matter of fact - he just can’t be assed to do it himself. While this would harbor some amount of resentment, Haru is generous enough with his paychecks to still that at the beginning. )

Personality snapshot: (Wild, spastic, rude.)
Most prominent personality trait: (Confidence- or maybe more realistically, cockiness.
Best traits: (Funny, incorrigible, occasionally generous)
Worst traits: (He’s an asshole, with all the bad things that comes with. He won’t hesitate to roofie a hot chicks drink.)
Likes: (Haru will try everything once, and he mostly has; drugs, women, a man or two, skydiving, alcohol; he has no shortage of vices and interests..)
Dislikes: (Smart girls, stubborn guys, people with no sense of humor. The police. Anything that interferes with him having fun or robbing people.)
Fears: (Death and anybody capable of delivering it. Haru is a coward and concerned only with himself.)
Goals: (Eventually? Buy a private island, stock it with good food and beautiful women, and retire.)
Habits: (Haru has his fair share of vices, ranging from women to wine to drugs, but he uses them all responsibly … or at least as responsibly as Haru can get.)

☆Character Information☆

Current faith or religion: (Haru worships a spider deity he knows as “The Duke”, though perhaps ‘worship’ is stretching the truth. He believes in it’s existence and to him all his prayers are sent, but he has none of the trappings of a traditional religion.)
Current superstitions/quirks: (None)
Alignment: (Evil Jerk)
Marital status: (Single)
Occupation: (Haru is the CEO and owner of The Spiders Web, a store specializing in rare and unique artifacts and antiques. It is also a cover for the magical Black Market, where he sells and buys illegal merchandise from metahumans and magical creatures, be it artifact or flesh. In addition, he is a world-renowned thief known as “The Red Bandit” who has lead the police in a reign of terror for the last fifty years. It’s a mantle he has taken up from his dad.)
Family: (His father, Aiko Shiba, and mother, Selena Shiba, live in their massive manor on the Akihabara in Japan, along with seven of his sisters and his youngest brother. His youngest sister, Hana Shiba, has left home to pursue a life of art and traditionalism.)

☆Power/Abilities☆
Powers and Abilities: (Clip of the Spider-Friend - A versatile piece of jewelry that can be worn as a hair decoration, a ring, or as a pendant on a necklace or bracelet.While this accessory is worn on the person, it grants them it’s power to talk to spiders. To perfectly understand the arachnid language. This is the power this artifact grants Haru.

Arcane Knowledge - As a proprietor and seller of magical goods and artifacts, Haru is very knowledgeable about their existence. Though he doesn’t practice magic himself, he can recognize it in most of its forms. Any historic artifact he knows about. Additionally, magical creatures and even the more infamous or famous witches and wizards of this world he has studied, just in case their magic should be turned against him. This includes knowledge of alchemical properties, though he cannot create alchemical conconctions himself.
Weaknesses: (The Clip of the Spider-Friend can be used by anyone wearing the artifact, and cannot control spiders, only understand them and be understood by them.)
Skills and Talents: (Acrobatics - Haru is one of the world's most accomplished acrobats. As a youth, he was the star in a traveling circus, effortlessly accomplishing feats adults struggled with. His natural athleticism and and size contribute to this. Contortionism go hand-in-hand with this. All his joints are double-jointed and he can squeeze and twist into conditions that normal guys couldn’t even imagine.

Stealth - As a thief, cat burglar, and all-around criminal, Haru has mastered the art of stealth and disguise. It’s almost like a superhero. His skill in moving unseen can only be rivaled by those that can turn invisible or otherwise make themselves unseen (that’s how he likes to descibe himself anyway). The truth is, he is very, very good at being stealthy. Along with stealth, he is an expert at make-up and disguise and with some effort, can make himself look like an entirely different. Additionally, Haru is one of the best thieves in the world. His mastery of locks is unmatched, and he can pick the pocket of a pissed off grizzly, all while maintaining a casually arrogant attitude.)

Combat - Haru is a decently skilled combatant, able to hold his own with other talented humans. His lack of true powers and cowardice always gets in his way.
Equipment: (”R.E.D.” (Reinforced Ebonizing Defense) - A suit of armor passed on from his father. Mottled red and black, with a long cape emblazoned with the symbol of a dagger, it is designed to move effortlessly and to strike a terrifying visage. Leather reinforced with steel and silk cover his chest and legs and he’s shod in hardened, knee-high boots. Bamboo strips softened with silk cover the bottom of these boots to help soften the footsteps. The mask is form fitted and covered in a hood. Angular, with only two black slits to act as eyes and a voice modular to make its wearer sound demonic. The sight of this mask has been known to strike shopkeepers dead.

When it comes to abilities, R.E.D. possesses it’s fair share. The gloves are customized with an electronic interface system capable of effortlessly hacking cyber-security, siphoning card information from atms, and opening electronic locks. The mask has a heads up display that can isolate threats based on the danger of the weapons they are holding. Fists are highlighted in green, physical weapons in yellow, guns in red, and any powers in white. In addition, it can highlight valuable and rare artifacts and, by request, bring up any information in the database about it. The mask additionally contains bluetooth and cellular capabilities. R.E.D. cannot be caught on camera. In addition to these electronic capabilities, the color of the suit can be turned to black at will, to better blend into backgrounds and the like.

Spiders Claw - A small black club-like device about a foot and a half in length, capable of being clipped onto a belt. There are three buttons; two are near the hollow top, the other is near the bottom. When the top button is pressed, a three pronged hook, lined with multitudinous jagged nodules to grip onto smooth or slick surfaces. Attached to this three pronged hook is a tight, carbon alloy cable, capable of holding a thousand pounds of weight before snapping. This cable is capable of being deployed up to 100 feet. Depressing the button will lock the cable in place, and pressing it again will retract the cable. The button under this one won’t retract the cable, but rather activate the spring loaded mechanism hidden inside the cable and launch whoever is holding the cable forward with enough force to pull up to 250 pounds clear across the street. The bottom button is rarely used. When pressed, the grapple transforms into a heavy ball, each point curling up like the legs of a spider. Like this, the Spiders Claw is an effective melee weapon.

Minions: Amalia Ashenberry (Yellowjacket), Balthazar du Strahlia (Fire Ant), and Francine Woodwind (Black Beetle)

☆History☆

Current residence: (Split residence between his shops in New York and Osaka)
Birthplace: (Tokyo, Japan)
Memorable Figures: (His father, for one. He looks up to him.)

General History: (Born the first child of a pair of struggling newlyweds, the first few years of his life was spent alone in the small apartment, his father running his shop downstairs with his mother to assist. With no friends and very little interaction with other beings, and only his mother (her English background not exactly conducive to a traditional Japanese upbringing) and Father (who wasn’t any better than his mother) for company, he soon became ‘the weird kid’. He embraced the title to tell the truth; from the moment he started school, he would eat pennies, pants the teacher, or throw oranges at the principal in an attempt to get the attention of other kids. He was the typical “bad kid”. He did well on his tests, sure, but he never cared about school, much more interested in going outside and running around and doing things. These days, he’d be called ADHD. It only got worse the older he got; his father and mother were very much in love and, with their spontaneous bouts of love, he soon found himself with a house full; seven sisters, with Hana, the oldest girl, only ten months younger than him.

Magic wasn’t a common thing in Haru’s life, unless you count the illusions he used to entertain his siblings and classmates. In fact, he didn’t even believe in it. He was too focused on his jerk of a dad trying to change him and turn him into just another “sheep” of the system (he had serious authority issues). These only got worse as he hit puberty and, at the ripe age of eleven, he ran away. It came as a shock to his mother and father; many hours were lost crying over their eldest child and only son. And Haru? Haru was happy. He joined a circus, a traveling band of vagabonds and actors going from city to city, living on their wits and their skills. It was like something out of a fairy tail. It was here, in this world, he had his first taste of magic. A young Dragon, by the name of Daru, joined them then. His tremendous strength and fire breathing powers wowed crowds everywhere, but to Haru it signaled the start of a brand new will.

He was sixteen years old when he returned, hair painted, face pierced and with an attitude and arrogance only matched by his father. It was a rough transition, but he was focused now, he had a goal. Throwing himself into his studies, it wasn’t long before he got his Certificate for Excellence and went to University. Though by no means the top of his class in Archaeology, Haru had a secondary goal; it gave him access to a wide repertoire of research materials. Along with his rigorous studies for Archaeology, he took it upon himself to learn everything he could about the magical world, soon becoming unmatched by nearly any other human not embroiled in the world itself. At twenty one, the new graduate went to his first dig to unearth a lost King’s treasure. And among those he found his legendary Clip. It called to him, whispered it’s name in it’s ear and promised the world. And the power-hungry boy agreed.

It was during his junior year of university that his father passed onto him R.E.D. and The Spiders Claw, known then as The Rocket, and revealed his existence as the Red Bandit, a world-renowned criminal known for ripping off the most secure of places. It was an heirloom, his father said, passed on to Haru for safekeeping. He could be trusted, the call was too tempting … and, Aiko would soon find out, the call was too much for Haru as well. Three whole months passed before the Red Bandit ripped off a convenience store, and from there, the crime spree only continued. Aiko disapproved, of course … but he was also glad his son took after him. It was an uncomfortable few days in the Shbia household when this came to light, as Selena did not approve. She never liked her husband acting as thief and burglar, let alone her son! But Haru was determined and committed, and even his mother had to admit, he was better at it than Aiko ever was.

Absconding with his new treasure, Haru led a life of debauchery overseas for a while before returning to Japan. A horde of treasures were rusting in a warehouse of his, results of his endless adventures, and thus he opened The Spiders Web, a specialty store focusing on rare and unique artifacts … and in the back room, magical deals go down. Some of the most dangerous artifacts (and, on occasion, people) have passed through his and his associates hands. And he was well-paid in return. His empire grew; soon, he was the only dealer in all of Japan, and though he focused on magic, nothing was out of the question. Guns, drugs, flesh; he dabbled in everything. This, along with his life as the Red Bandit, made him very, very rich.)