Editing ROTE:Maki Tatsu (section)

== Background ==
Maki's fun-loving mother Mako was trained as a kunoichi, in seduction and infiltration and tried to raise Maki the same way.  Maki, being more of an athletic bent, didn't take well to it, and it was kind of weird having her mom tell her how to seduce boys all the time... which she still hasn't stopped!  Mako thinks it's a criminal waste.  

Maki's bloodline powers favor her father (who her mother never speaks of)... direct, powerful chi applications.  She can transform a simple kunai or pocketknife into a gigantic sword and still swing it as if it were a knife.  A hit from it can cleave a car in two or send a person flying away.  Her ultimate use of it is the “River Cutting Strike” in which the blade grows to nearly 200 feet long.  Applications for this have proven rather limited, but she's still proud of it.  She does have some of her mother's talents, able stimulate loving feelings in other people, a technique she thinks is “kind of dirty” and has not developed very much.  

Her father vanished when she was young.  (He was a dreamer, seeking a way to end the conflict without more fighting).  She is mostly self-trained in the use of her chi sword, drawing on a mix of kendo, kung-fu weapon styles and sentai shows on TV.

She's on the swim team at school and pitches in when the other athletic clubs need it.  She's always up for testing her skills in a fight, which she so rarely gets the chance to do...  With a history for beating up guys get too forward in asking her out based on her mother's bloodline and no actual boyfriend, some people whisper that she must like girls.  She doesn't, but she doesn't discourage this talk, since it gives her some peace and quiet.  Besides, any boy who was really determined would see through the rumors, right?

She's generally cheerful and forthright... she knows a lot more about manipulating people that she'd like and tries to avoid doing such things whenever possible.