Editing ROTE:Dokueki Sumie (section)

==Family background==

The Dokueki family has been compared to snakes for ages-- they creep through the grass, up trees, over walls, wait for their moment to strike, then attack with a devastating blow that leaves their victim twitching and dying in agony, his chi system poisoned and destroying him. In the course of studying that last effect, of course, they've had to learn a lot about how the human body works, and thus gained a secondary reputation as healers. Traditionally, however, they don't care about healing-- they are the silent, death-bringing snakes, damnit! Why does everybody keep going to them for healing, anyway?

The current generations:

Sumie's father Nobuo is a widower, always on the lookout for a new wife. (He claims that it's to provide a mother for his children. Everybody else is of the opinion that he's just chasing women, most of them faaaaar too young for him.) He takes the ninja duties of the Dokueki family very seriously, and can't understand why Sumie wouldn't want to go be an all-out ninja. There's a lot of great guys in the business, after all. He's also a lot more interested in the mayhem aspects of the family's style than the healing (or even subtle) techniques that can be used with it.

Sumie's maternal grandmother Masumi takes care of the domestic side of family life. She's very old, and very traditional. She's small, and not very mobile, and a frightening expert with subtle nerve holds-- she can make Sumie's little brother sweep up the floor by grabbing his ear and manipulating his chi so that his arms have no option but to sweep. (She's also slightly shorter than him, and will turn anyone she pleases into her horse, jumping on their back, and manipulating their chi so that they take her wherever she wants.)

Sumie's little brother Tsutomu is about ten. He's shown a lot of skill in Dokueki family mobility forms, and so can climb the sheerest walls, jump from tree to tree, and slither through the tiniest cracks for the purpose of annoying people and getting underfoot-- especially for following Sumie around. He thinks that she needs to date more, but doesn't approve of any actual boys that have ever been anywhere near her, and will make a point of tormenting any boy who might in some way be a conceivable date for her, while still pestering Sumie about how she needs to get a boyfriend.