Yae Tenzen (ヤエ・テンゼン) is a former member of the Priscilla Camp. Debuting as both a supporting and a twist antagonistic character in Tanpenshuu Volume 4's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies story, she plays a secondary antagonistic role in Arc 9 as an accomplice of Aldebaran.
A shinobi from the Vollachia Empire, she played the role of Priscilla's Grand Chamberlain after being tasked by Chisha Gold to keep an eye on her, and later, to assassinate her. She disappeared after a brief fight with Al, seemingly having been killed. In truth, however, Yae survived her encounter with Aldebaran, having been traumatized into forcibly becoming his servant. She joined Al's side once he began to fulfill his purpose, intending to affirm his death after he completed his mission.
Contents
Appearance
Yae is a fair-skinned beautiful young woman around the age of twenty whose aura of charm and flexibility is akin to that of a cat. She has long, tied up pale red hair, cat-like jet black eyes, and slender, supple arms and legs. She wears a maid uniform adopted from a Japanese style, having a base of red with black and white mixed in, as well as black leggings and boots.
Personality
An eccentric, gifted prodigy with excellent learning capabilities since childhood, Yae gained a reputation in the shinobi village as a girl who embodied the very essence of a shinobi. Due to her talent, she never knew fear during her training and easily overcame any difficulties in her path. In spite of her training, however, Yae believed that she did not fit the mold of the idealized image of a shinobi that the others in her village did, feeling it was troubling to have the expectation that she would placed onto her. Bereft of the aspirations typical of the shinobi, she displayed an amiable yet nonchalant attitude, unabashedly not treating most things in life whether it concerned her interpersonal relationships, killing a target, or the possibility of her own death, having used this nature as a way to conceal her true intentions from the people around her in accordance with her training of suppressing her own emotions. With her sharp mind, she has learned and exemplified mastery in various shinobi techniques in under a year, researched and studied anything from potential future targets or threats, including those in a foreign nation, to miscellaneous subjects such as the identities and number of people in a small village or the corpse soldiers of the Demi-Human War, and she can easily recall said information at a moment's notice.
Having never found anything she experienced in the past scary, Yae was first made to know "terror" by Al upon facing the Aggressor side of his Authority, which pierced her heart, broke down her will, and shattered her mind and prior way of being. The programming of her soul as a shinobi that once dictated that she suppress her emotions or commit suicide upon failure was overwritten by a severe feeling of terror and the absolute submission of her soul to Al, whom she views as a monster. As a result, Yae's attitude has changed from the unserious attitude she bore before, developing a distorted obsession towards Al and vowing to him that she will do anything to serve him so long as he refrains from frightening her the way he did before again. She remains unflinching in the face of those other than Al who threaten her safety, be it the Sword Demon or the Divine Dragon. Despite Yae's submission to Al, she often mixes her words with malice or an intent to verbally wound him, as well as to other people such as Heinkel. Furthermore, she frequently attempts to propose that he use her for "comfort", whether for her abilities, her body, or anything else, offering herself as an outlet to relax his mind, vent his frustrations, and fulfill any desire he may have, as insurance that he can persist long enough to fulfill his goal. Her motivation for supporting Al is to ensure that, once he fulfills his purpose, he dies, fervently convinced that she will never be able to feel safe again as long as he is alive.
History
Hailing from Vollachia, Yae resided in the shinobi village and trained to become a shinobi from childhood. While her age was in the single digits, she completely mastered how to manipulate her body's latent mana with the Flow Method. In less than a year, she acquired more than ten techniques that would have taken most shinobi several years to learn. Developing a reputation as a genius girl, she adhered to the philosophy of the shinobi chieftain, Olbart Dunkelkenn, becoming his most treasured apprentice in the process.[1] She met with Chisha Gold at his request to carry out the task of infiltrating Leip Barielle's staff due to his wife, Priscilla. He received her evaluation of her own skills and tasked her to stand by and closely observe Priscilla once hired and await the possibility of being given new instructions depending on the situation. In Lugunica, she was hired as a maid in the Barielle Manor by Leip shortly before his incapacitation,[2] though she never met him in person before his death. In time, she worked her way up in the mansion and was appointed to the role of Grand Chamberlain by Priscilla.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Yae worked alongside Priscilla and Al in the zombie infestation in Coffleton and the waterwheel among the Tenrill River. Confronting Edda Rayfast, the trio was ambushed, and Yae and Al were caught in a trap that the former escaped by kicking the latter's shoulder to grab ahold of the ceiling, causing him to fall into a large pit. Priscilla ordered Yae to retreat and search for Al. Happening upon Al in the underground water treatment facility several hours later, she followed his request to bring the Crimson Battlefront to slay the undead while he ventured to rescue Priscilla. The undead were successfully slain following this, and Al saved Priscilla. However, around this time, Yae had been given the order to assassinate Priscilla. On the same night of the zombie incident, Al revealed he knew that Yae was an assassin who had been sent to kill Priscilla. She rejected his offer to abandon her goal, and the two confronted each other in a brief fight. Yae disappeared following their encounter, and according to Al, she had decided to “resign” because of “familial matters”. In reality, he used the Aggressor side of his Authority to instill "terror" into Yae, traumatizing her. As a result, she became his servant, motivated by the sole wish to ascertain his death in the future.
Guardians of the Crimson Flame
Despite his claim to the contrary, in reality, Al used the Aggressor side of his Authority to instill “terror” into Yae, traumatizing her. As a result, she became his servant, and he ordered her to lay low elsewhere.
A short time later, a suicide squad comprised of ten shinobi was tasked by Chisha Gold to kill Priscilla, which Yae failed to accomplish. Discovering there were signs of people visiting the base she had previously used, she determined that they intended to assassinate Priscilla during the upcoming Masquerade Night she was going to hold. During the night of the event, Al and Yae worked together to kill the nine shinobi around the mansion who were to be used as sacrificial distractions. Meanwhile, Hamayal Wesmi, the shinobi entrusted with carrying out the assassination, was met by Al in one of the hidden passageways to the Barielle Manor that were constructed under Leip's supervision. Hamayal sent his Phantom Wolf on Al, expecting it would defeat him, but he was met with one of Yae's steel threads and realized she was alive, sending him into a fury. However, Yae told Hamayal that she had not betrayed the shinobi to save herself, but rather because she had submitted to “terror”, and that the harbinger of it was getting up. Before Hamayal's eyes, Al had risen and overcome his Phantom Wolf, forcing it to submit to him by using the Aggressor side to his Authority. Being ordered to stand back, Yae watched as proceeded to to use Al used his Authority against Hamayal to break his mind in a similar way to how hers was.
Abilities
Shinobi Techniques (シノビの術技, Shinobi no Jutsugi): Yae has mastered a number of shinobi techniques despite her young age and excels with them so much so that she was regarded as a genius prodigy who followed Olbart's doctrine of being a shinobi.[1] Both her employer, Chisha, and Olbart, the shinobi chieftain and second-most powerful shinobi in the present day, believed it was possible she could succeed the role of chieftain.[3] She gauged that her skill was enough to assassinate the head of House Mathers or House Astrea, though not both, as she surmised that she would have needed to give her life to successfully eliminate one of them.[4] Before her disappearance, Al accused her of being the woman who would kill Priscilla, having already done so once, and he regarded her capabilities vital for his own plans. Her signature skill is the Steel Thread Technique, a secret technique that no shinobi other than her has been able to wield in centuries.
Yae using the Steel Thread Technique to stand in the air.
- Steel Thread Technique (鋼糸術, Kōshi-jutsu): A technique which Yae uses steel wires to bind and trap her targets or bind things such as debris or fallen trees in the air, launch said debris like a cannon (with assistance), kill her enemies, rescue her allies, to close her wounds, or even to stand on midair. The greatest advantage to using this, however, is that it allows her to attack her opponents from every angle and hit enemies even when they are hiding somewhere out of Yae's vision while keeping herself at a distance safe from harm. Using this technique requires that she wears rings with steel wires within them. Yae is the only shinobi capable of using this technique,[5][6] and according to Al, due to how much strength and proper control is required to use even one of these rings, the fact that she can use ten so masterfully is nothing short of incredible. On top of this, she is capable of using another ten with her toes.
Acquired Skills: As a shinobi, Yae has mastered various skills that enhance her capabilities.
- Stealth: Yae is a master of stealth. According to herself, aside from her old village chief, there shouldn't have been many people who could notice her presence concealed.
- Night Vision: After having been subject to training to improve her night vision, Yae has mastered manipulating her own body to the point that by manipulating the blood flow around her eyes, she can even see in the darkness as if she were seeing in the daylight.
- Enhanced Dexterity: Yae is agile and a skilled acrobat, and when combined with her Steel Thread Technique, she is able to move at swift speeds, even allowing her to narrowly avoid deadly attacks brought about by people such as the Sword Demon. It is because of this alongside her lethal techniques that she earned herself the epithet of the Crimson Sakura.
Equipment:
- Kunai: Yae carries several kunai on her person. Despite the knives being relatively short, not even being able to cleanly pierce a person's hand through, she is easily able to dispose of any enemy she faces by utilizing her precise throwing skills and masterfully targeting their weak spots, such as their heart or their forehead, killing them in seconds.
- Steel Thread Rings: Yae carries with her twenty rings with wire-like steel threads within them, ten on her fingers and ten on her toes. They are strong enough that, with enough pressure, they can easily cut through flesh and bone and sever limbs from the body or even allow her and others to stand on them without breaking. She can also make the threads divide themselves and make themselves finer than before and near invisible to the eye, and by kissing her rings, she can ignite all of her threads at once. The rings themselves were killing armaments made by Groovy Gumlet.[6]
Trivia
- In her first appearance, Yae's eye color was originally described as jet-black. It was changed to crimson in both the text and illustrations starting in Volume 40.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Rather than blindly honing one’s own special skill, thoroughly training in strategies to thwart the strong points of the opponent, and learning techniques of guiding the battle so as to bring about that situation. But then again, this change did not readily bear fruit. Those who had been properly shaped by it were few, with the last being a genius girl who had appeared in the village four or five years prior. Re:Zero Light Novel Volume 38, Chapter 3, Section 7.
- ↑ “To begin with, I was only hired by the Master… although he is now deceased, I was hired by the Master as a waiting maid of the mansion, in order to serve the Madam?” Re:Zero Tanpenshuu Volume 4, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Section 4.
- ↑ “I can agree to her being called a genius… supposing General First-Class Olbart retired due to his advanced age, she might even become his successor as chieftain of the village, hmmm.” The Land of Wolves / Death unto the Weak, No Mercy 13, Section 2.
- ↑ “Doing both is impossible, but if it was just one, I think I could do it if I gave up on returning home alive.” The Land of Wolves / Death unto the Weak, No Mercy 13, Section 2.
- ↑ “How perceptive. Of course, this isn’t just any~ old sewing thread, y’know? This is what’s known as a shinobi technique. Though, I’ve never seen anyone else who can use it except me.” Re:Zero Light Novel Volume 40, Chapter 3, Section 11.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Even among the shinobi, known for their skills far surpassing the human realm, only the Crimson Sakura, Yae Tenzen, had mastered the Steel Thread Technique, an art proper of the greatest illusionists and warriors, which utilized the killing armaments produced by the Master of Curse Tools, Groovy Gumlet. Re:Zero Light Novel Volume 40, Chapter 4, Section 3.
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