Kazu Kurusu

"'You drove me from my own homeland, you separated me from Ruka, my one love and I've been forced to wear this mask out of fear for years. Now you claim you've changed. How?'""- Kazu to Iki in the Shou Lung Palace"

Kazu Kurusu is a party member of the Fellers in The Deathless.

Kazu is a blademaster from Shou Lung and was once a member of the Tosei Lung, a elite group of warriors who served the Emperor of Shou Lung. He is a very capable warrior who wields the Dragonfang Glaive.

Appearance
Kazu is a rough-looking, tall, muscular man with long black hair, a beard and brown eyes.

He is often seen wearing a black and gold dragon mask when he needs to conceal his identity.

Weapons

 * Dragonfang Glaive: Kazu's signature weapon which was capable of defeating monsters many times his size.
 * Throwing axe: While only used once against an oceanic creature capable of mind control, this still is a weapon in Kazu's arsenal of tools.

Backstory
One day, an unnamed orphan child was left on the doorstep of the Imperial Palace with only a tag reading "first child" written in High Shou to identify him. The Emperor took notice of this and named the child "Kazu", which was High Shou for first, and ordered the leader of the Tosei Lung at the time, Tai Kurusu, to raise the child along with Iki Kurusu to become the Emperor's right hand men and Shou Lung's greatest warriors.

Along with Iki, the two were taught and trained in the traditional methods of Shou combat. While Kazu excelled in his education, Iki was looked down upon by his father and was repeatedly told he wouldn't amount to anything. The constant feeling of being incompetent slowly drove Iki to resent Kazu and grow jealous of what he had achieved. As a result of these bitter feelings, the spirit of Wrath chose Iki as it's new host, granting Iki supernatural powers.

Iki's resentment for his brother and father eventually boiled over when one night Iki attempted to murder both Kazu and their own father in their home with his newfound powers. Tai Kurusu was killed in the fight against his own son and Kazu narrowly escaped believing Iki was dead after Iki lost control of himself in his dragon form, causing the building to collapse on top of him.

Miraculously, Iki survived and took over as the leader of the Tosei Lung, claiming Kazu was a traitor who murdered their father and must be stopped at all costs. As a result of this, Kazu was forced to flee Shou Lung and the rest is history...

Trivia

 * In The Deathless, Kazu never killed any people. The only things he killed were monsters.
 * Kazu originally was intended to be a criminal attempting to cut ties with a large Shou criminal organization. This is shown during Iki's original "Have you seen this man" monologue and in the unofficial Army of the Damned campaign.
 * This version of Kazu took more inspiration from Kazuma Kiryu, of the Yakuza games than he did in his final version.