Editing The Gods Also Rise Youmu (section)

==== Background ====

Nekohara Youmu, formerly named Katherine Carradine, is the daughter of American SEAL William Carradine and Japanese geisha Nekohara Yuyuko. William met Yuyuko in a geisha house in Japan while on a mission, and despite the objections from both families, married her and brought her back to the United States. Soon after their wedding, their daughter Katherine Carradine was born.

Katherine was shy but energetic. Too energetic, her mother would say. Nothing could stop Katherine from sitting on top of the cabinet or generally jumping onto anything taller than herself. Her mother tried to focus Katherine’s energy in the art of traditional dance, to no avail. Katherine’s father, not nearly as savvy about the mentality of a 6-year-old girl…gave Katherine a small katana and sent her to a kendo doujou.

And it worked. From that day on, Katherine spent all her energy on the practice of kendo. She became more confident and outgoing, and no longer feel the need to jump up anything taller than her. Nothing stops Katherine from practice, in the doujou or at home, not even her father’s mysterious MIA when she was only eight. A few years later, Katherine’s mother married a second generation Japanese American, changing Katherine’s name to Nekohara Youmu. 

Just days before Youmu’s sixteenth birth day, her BFF sent her some phothos shot in Washington DC. In one of those photos is a face that’s unmistakably Youmu’s father, William Carradine, who went MIA eight years ago. Determined to find out the truth about her father, Youmu went to Washiton DC alone, carrying only a cell phone, a bus ticket and a small katana. That, and ten years of experience in using it.