Second Son of the Sun: Taiyouji Jiro

[Sol]

Tokubetsukeisatsutai, Coded #235904002NT11820
To the Office of Kaisho; ATTN: Kaisho Yuri Nagata ONLY
Detailed Background Checks; Personnel ID 04002818; Taiyouji Jiro, Nito Kaii

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Name of Personnel: Jiro Taiyouji
Rank: Nito Kaii
Date of Birth: 19.07.795
Place of Birth: Musashino, New Tokyo
Education: Kusari Naval Academy, Fighter Pilot (818 Graduate; Ranked #41)
Date of Enlistment: 01.03.818
Family: Retired-Santo Kaisa Genzou Taiyouji (father), Late-Nito Kaisa Gin Taiyouji (brother), Mikari Taiyouji (step-mother), Eka Hamada (mother)

Commentaries:

Jiro Taiyouji is the second son and heir of the current head of Taiyouji Family, Genzou Taiyouji.

The father, Genzou, has found and owns a half of the shares of Taiyo Aviation, effectively a branch of the Samura Heavy Industries now, which manufactures and designs ships and aviation mechanics for commercial flight. Genzou is also a Flight Engineer himself, and in his time of serving with the Kusari Navy, he took part in several projects to improve the older designs of the naval ships that are in use today. He retired from active duty in 794, approximately a year before the birth of his second son.

Jiro's late half-brother was Nito Kaisa Gin Taiyouji, the decorated Seto war veteran. He started his naval career in 812 AS after he graduated from the then Imperial Naval Academy, ranked as high as #3 among his peers. He showed great promise both in battle and in command duty through his time in the Imperial Naval Forces. With the rank of Nito Kaisa, he was in charge of a Special Operations Task Force, belonging to the Seto Battlegroup. All records showed him and his whole Task Force to be K.I.A., before the separation of Seto Battlegroup from the rest of the Naval Forces.

An intense search into the background of Jiro and his family, and the hospital records on the date of Jiro's birth, make it highly likely that he's the result of an illegitimate relationship between his father Genzou, and Eka Hamada, who's a woman of common birth, an owner of a restaurant in Musashi, New Tokyo. This illegitimate relationship in the past, and Jiro's dubious birth are kept secret from the public to preserve the good image of the Taiyouji family and Taiyo Company.

It is unknown if Jiro is aware of the identity of his biological mother, but it is possible that he knows of his dubious birth, due to an earlier family incident after which Jiro left home at a teen age to fall in with Hogosha youth gangs for a couple of years. It is said that he was literally beaten up and dragged out from the underworld and forced into the Naval Acadamy by his brother Gin. Even though it was already mid-season in the Academy, and no recruits would be taken, his influential father and brother pulled enough strings to make it happen.

It also appears that there are many cases where his father had to bribe the Instructors and the Head of the Academy so he was not kicked out and could pass to the next term. Especially his first two years in the Academy shows many bad conduct records. But the next two years, [which is interesting to note that this timeline intersects with the reported death of his brother, Gin] there is a steady improvement, his marks reach to acceptable levels, and after a small incident in his third year, his discipline record is totally clean. There's a note on his examination paper at the end of his third year, from the Flight Instructor Ito Kaii Nao Nozaki, which simply says 'He's a natural,'. His flight scores are indeed among the highest of his peers, and was the single most determinant factor in his graduation and admittance into the Naval Forces. In other fields such as responsibility, tactics and command his scores were barely below average.

After graduation, he was immediately enlisted into the force with the rank of Santo Kaii, and was sent to Battleship Matsumoto to reinforce the patrols against the Blood Dragons and GC threats.

In his rookie season, Jiro had been repeatedly disciplined for disobeying orders, and was grounded a couple of times. But the constant loss of rookie pilots did not allow the command to be choosy enough to send him off. He was apparently not the smartest guy, but he somehow survived. Here's a report from his wing leader about Jiro's behavior at the time:

"This guy is nuts. He doesn't listen to an order to retreat, or just listens way too late, having all the enemies on his tail and just barely surviving, everytime. He had not lost a ship yet, but he took more damage than the rest of the wing combined in the last two months... He flies blindly into the middle of the enemy formation as if he wants them all to shoot at him. I fear we'll have to add him to the list of fried nuggets soon enough, but the lad is a beast in a fight, and an amazing drinking mate... I can easily say that he's really liked by the rest of the team... I'll have to do my best to reform him, but I fear I might not have too much time left for it..."

In the early 820, he was promoted to Nito Kaii and he also received a few medals. But only a few days after he, again, disobeyed direct orders to retreat and lost his vessel in the skirmish, which hospitalized him for a month and grounded him for another. He was demoted, and his medals were taken.

Here is the report from when he was admitted to the Primary Naval Forces in 820-6, evaluating his rookie year:

"Mental health and psyche analyses suggest that Jiro is suspectable to rash decisions, often ignoring the commanding officers who are usually correct when they are advising caution. Statistics show that the vessels he flew ended up 44% more damaged compared to the average of his squadron in year 819.

His squad mates sounded their concerns about his poor planning and reckless tendencies many times, but they also always mentioned his cheerful nature and supportive attitude towards his fellow pilots. Naturally, however, it's not advised to give him the responsibility of command."

In the late June of 820, Jiro applied to the Primary Naval Forces, stating his reason as "You guys get all the action!". The next day, his request was accepted after a meeting with his old wing leader, who spoke rather favorable of him despite Jiro's shortcomings. He was promoted to Nito Kaii, and was transferred to a wing in New Tokyo, relatively less dangerous than his rookie station. It was reported that he was not happy about his new wing at first, as he wanted action.

As Jiro is the heir of Taiyo Company, his father's efforts may have helped him as well in his admittance; it only makes the Taiyouji family more prestigious when their heir has some success in the navy.

Strangely enough, Jiro's time in the Primary Forces appear a little more responsible than his rookie year. Even though he had never challenged a direct order yet, there are some incidents.

In his very first day in the Primaries, Jiro was evaluated by the advisor Yuji Kobayakawa. They flew to Tau-29 with the reports of Exile sightings, and managed to catch one. It is said that Jiro quickly captured the Exile pilot and brought her to Battleship Nagumo for questioning. From where she later escaped, under shady circumstances.

The same day, their patrol was attacked by an Outcast raid party, and the only one remaining with his ship was Kobayakawa, as Jiro remained back and guarded Kobayakawa's retreat.

There was a case a bit afterwards, in a lost skirmish where the pilots in Jiro's patrol disagreed among each others. One of the pilots in the patrol went on a drinking spree after the incident, crashed her ship, and subsequently was demoted. After her demotion, she was assigned to be Jiro's wing-mate by the command in order to force them to cooperate with each other.

A Tokkeitai agent also reports that she took him to a flight through the omicrons in his first week, and tried to get an idea about his mentality through the journey. It's reported that Jiro had told her about his simple philosophy, which, in his words, is 'to be content, to accept and live with what you have to, to love what's near, to enjoy simple things, but to also guard them with your life when it comes to that,'. Jiro apparently also added that he has absolutely no ambition, he wouldn't want to be that 'heir of the Taiyouji family, who has to be perfect like Gin,' if he had a choice. Probably, he doesn't find himself fit for such a responsibility, and he doesn't feel like he can fill his brother's shoes.

Jiro is known to keep his distance from the Taiyouji family's estate, and only communicates with his relatives if he absolutely has to. 'There is a deep enmity between himself and his mother', is what the servants of the Taiyouji household say, 'and a degree of coldness between father and son,'. 'You'd think that the young master despises the Taiyouji, and generally everything about them,'.

Jiro is known to make fun of the opposing enemy in the skirmishes, most probably to make them target himself. Reading his patrol logs, it appeared to us that he enjoys to insult the Farmers Alliance the most. An interesting thing to note in one of the patrol logs was that, even though many of the pilots and citizens of Kusari still remain somewhat loyal, never daring to speak against the Emperor's person, Jiro has no reservation about telling how much he despises the Emperor to incite a Farmer opponent into attacking him. The strength and sureness of his words when he insults the Emperor leave no trace of doubt that he indeed despises the Emperor. This is intriguing, as the Taiyouji family are claiming descent from the Imperial Family, and have been among the Emperors' most loyal supporters through centuries. The head of Taiyouji, Jiro's father, still doesn't hide his support to the Emperor, at least in words only.

This might be an example of how much Jiro actually despises the Taiyouji family in actuality.

Jiro has been a part of the Primary Force for about five months, here are several more things of note so far:

• Jiro took part in the successful covert operation into Omicron Minor, against the Liberty Forces, in coordination of our elite agents that infiltrated the Arch.
  
• He argues with agent Kiyohime usually, which was once rather vehement. Her outlook on life can be considered to be a near complete contrast of Jiro's.
  
• In the recent incident of Nansei, it was his wing that got their ships stolen by the rebels. In that scenario, he showed a lot of attachment to his wing-mate Teta Nakamura, who's also the pilot who was demoted after a drinking spree, and got herself assigned to Jiro's wing.
  
• Jiro's a friend of Motoya Toshiro, a bartender in the Perfect Blossom Tea Room, who's also known as 'Philosopher Toshiro' or 'Uncle Toshiro'. Toshiro, in the past, got in trouble with the authority, as he was caught while smuggling foreign alcoholic beverages to bypass the taxes. This might hint that Jiro could still be in contact with the underworld from his youth; but if he is, he's very careful at it as we were not able to find a proof of any of his involvements of that kind as of yet.
  

Tokkeitai Unit Gaikotsu, 820-11-23

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