Zen

Summary
Zen (ゼン) is the father of Rio, he passed away shortly after Rio's birth. He was an adventurer and a former royal guard of Karasuki Kingdom.

Personality
Zen was an awkward man, but he was kind and clever nonetheless. Zen was describe as an honest person.

History
Zen was born as the second son of a farmer in Karasuki Kingdom of Yagumo Region. In the year 980 of the Holy Era, Karasuki Kingdom was at war with Rokuren Kingdom at the time. Every village was going through tough times. As the second son, Zen voluntarily enlisted as a soldier so that the village can reduce the number of mouths to feed. When Zen left the village to become a soldier, many girls including Ume confessed to him at the time but none of them succeeded. He started as a mere soldier, but soon distinguished himself in the middle of war. He achieved feats worthy of King Homura Karasuki's attention and the king promoted Zen to the status of a Samurai for his distinguished service in the war. It was tradition for the newly-appointed Samurai to face off with their predecessors. In this case, it was Gouki Saga who had sparred with Zen and Gouki struggled to come out on top in their battle. Gouki strongly recommended Zen as a bodyguard for the royal family. Zen became Ayame Karasuki's bodyguard, however there were many who objected, as they didn't want to leave the protection of royalty to a commoner that was rising up in the world. Abilities aside, Zen lacked education and social status. Ayame also had Kayoko Saga and Gouki as her guards, so they were able to place all necessary education into him.

Ayame would ask Zen everything about what life was like in his village. Ayame and Zen would be drawn to each other but the gap between their statuses was too great, and Zen chose to conceal his feelings. Ayame would secretly visited the village a number of times. Zen desperately tried to stop her, insisting that there was nothing to see in his village, but Princess Ayame refused to budge. Gouki and Kayoko would secretly escort Ayame out of the palace and sneak her over to Zen's hometown.

Rokuren Kingdom approach Karasuki Kingdom with a peace treaty during a lull in the war. Karasuki Kingdom accepted the peace treaty and a great festival was held in the capital of Karasuki, with the prince of Rokuren attending as an ambassador. An attendant of the Rokuren prince tried to kidnap Ayame after she had retired for the night. Zen who had been guarding Ayame from the shadows, was able to apprehend the perpetrator before he succeeded. Zen immediately demanded the attendant to answer for the crimes but the perpetrator used a secret weapon that had been prepared in advance to commit suicide. The Rokuren Kingdom demanded additional terms for the peace treaty, they established several conditions with Zen's execution, and a political marriage between the Rokuren prince and Princess Ayame.

Homura pretended to agree to the demands in order to buy time. Homura was aware that Ayame and Zen had fallen in love. Homura decided he would rather entrust Ayame to Zen instead, rather than ending up in a political marriage with an undesirable partner. In the end, he gave the order for Zen to take Ayame and flee the kingdom. The two of them were officially treated as felons for willingly running away together and causing the start of the war. At the same time, the discontent within the country was directed toward Zen and Ayame for running away instead. Therefore the two of them lost their place in the Yagumo region. At the same time, the social barrier between Zen and Ayame had also been removed. After the war ended, Homura had sent out a wanted list to neighboring kingdoms with Zen and Ayame's names on it.

When they were young, they had spent years on a long journey to migrate from Yagumo region to the Strahl Region. Zen and Ayame became adventurers, they traveled from country to country and they planned their lives around their travels. But when Ayame, was pregnant with Rio, she temporarily withdrew from adventuring. Both Zen and Ayame named their son after the great hero Ryou. They had settled in Beltrum Kingdom. This left the financial burden of their livelihood on Rio’s father, Zen, who was a skilled adventurer. Zen had continued in the adventuring industry alone for a while, but ever since one day in particular, he had started to complete missions together with Lucius. Zen had the skills, but he was still a foreigner in a strange land. Lucius had called out to him while he was still getting used to the kingdom, and looked after him in various ways. Because of that, Zen brought Lucius home and introduced him to Ayame.

Zen would pass away shortly after Rio was born. Zen was working as an adventurer who one day messed up on the job and died, leaving Rio and Ayame. The truth of the case was that Lucius killed Zen.

Relationship

 * Ayame Karasuki
 * His beloved wife. Ayame was drawn to Zen, as Zen was an embodiment of the outside world.


 * Rio
 * Zen's son. Both Dola and Ume finds Rio to be similar to Zen. Yuba also finds Rio's honesty similar to his father. Gouki Saga says Rio has both Ayame and Zen's facial features, furthermore he says Rio has inherited Zen's talent for the arts of battle and he may even have more than he did.


 * Yuba
 * Zen's mother.


 * Gouki Saga
 * Gouki considers Zen to be a close friend. There weren't many opponents that could make his heart leap like Zen did.


 * Kayoko Saga


 * Dola
 * In his youth, he had a burning sense of rivalry against Zen and he'd never won against him. Their rivalry parallels with Rio and Shin. When Dola reminisce Zen, his expression turned faintly unpleasant, but nostalgic at the same time. He has a certain high opinion of Zen, for example Zen wouldn't settle for a woman from some country town. It is implied that Dola does misses Zen but quickly discard the thought as he couldn't come back to the village.


 * Ume
 * In her youth she confessed to Zen but she was rejected. Ume is sadden with the thought of not seeing Zen again.


 * Lucius Orgueille
 * Zen treated Lucius as a close friend, to the point where Zen felt comfortable revealing Ayame's lineage to Lucius.

Abilities
Zen had a natural talent for anything related to Spirit arts and military arts. Despite being a commoner, Zen's family line has a really high aptitude for spirit arts. It would have been nearly impossible for his father to make the harsh journey between the Yagumo and Strahl regions without spirit arts. Lucius also commented that Zen was an exceptional spirit arts user. Zen was a man with an innate talent for the arts of battle, as he was self-taught. He wasn't the type you could easily gain the upper hand on in a fight. Most sneak attacks wouldn't be able to phase a man like him. Gouki Saga was once evenly matched with Zen.