Katana (Male)

Katana (Male) is a playable male Turk from Before Crisis -Final Fantasy VII-. As his name implies, his chosen weapon is the katana sword which can be argumented by Materia.

While a long time member of the Turks, Katana (male) originally operated in the Turk's secondary division and first appears in Episode 18 when Tseng is ordered to bolster the Turks' ranks.

Appearance
Wearing glasses and possessing a scar down one cheek, Katana (Male) wears the standard Turk uniform of black suit with black tie, white undershirt and brown boots.

Character
Katana (Male)'s formidable reputation is contrasted by his love for beauty. He tends not to stay in one place for very long but is a long-time serving member of the Turks. As such he is one of the most senior of the playable characters.

Story
Katana (Male) had something of a reputation in his hometown, Gongaga, as a powerful and skillful swordsman. When a friend of his was kidnapped, Katana (Male) went to rescue him alone. The story has it that Katana (Male) arrived at the place his friend was being held and single-handedly defeated all the operatives in the area. While his friend was presumably freed, Katana (Male) himself was put into prison. His only way out came from the Turks, who recruited him, telling him that he would be free to leave if he would offer his formidable talent to their service. He did, and has been with the Turks for many years.

Conflict with Shinra
With the Player Turk rendered comatose due to injuries and Mako poisoning and Veld having deserted to pursue his daughter, Tseng is instructed to link with the Turks' secondary division to bolster numbers. Three years after the destruction the Corel reactor, the Player Turk awakens from their coma. Three months afterwards, the Player Turk and Reno are tasked with the capture of an endangered species known as "Guardians of the Planet" in Cosmo Canyon for Professor Hojo. While searching the canyon the pair visit Bugenhagen on Tseng's instruction and discover more about the monster Fuhito hopes to summon through Elfe's materia and learns that the materia was sapping Elfe's life force to exist; as a result Veld, having not been sighted since Corel, was searching for a way to remove it without harming his daughter. Resuming their pursuit of the "Guardian", the Turks come across new Raven operatives, far stronger than previously encountered, also pursuing the animals to disrupt a sacred ceremony held in the canyon. While the two groups initially pursued Deneh, Nanaki interferes and attacks the Turks to give Deneh time to flee. While managing to capture him, the Player Turk allows Nanaki to perform the ritual before taking him away.

Pursuing two research samples that had escaped from the Nibelheim Mansion, the Player Turk finds themselves in competition with the Shinra army to locate them. While searching the Nibelheim forest, the Player Turk starts questioning why they were hunting the subjects; whom they were partially responsible for imprisoning in the mansion four years previously. Finally coming across the escapees on the beach, the Player Turk discovers that they were hunting Zack. Conflicted over their feelings, the Player Turk attempts to do their duty and capture him, however, after seeing the extent of damage the experiments have done to Cloud,they report that Zack was no longer in the forest and let's Zack escape while they returns to Nibelheim to investigate the mansion where they discover Veld pouring through the mansion's archives. Learning that he needed a certain Materia to remove the Materia from Elfe's body and stop it draining her life, Veld has been searching for these support Materia, learning that the Turks already possessed one given to them by Shears during the Corel reactor incident. The pair search through the mansion and come across clues to another of Hojo's "research subjects", Vincent Valentine, Veld's old Turk partner, who informs them of the location of such a Materia elsewhere in the Mansion. As AVALANCHE appears to also find the support Materia, the Player Turk and Veld lose the orb to Fuhito while Scarlet informs the President in Midgar that the Turks are assisting Veld in spite of their orders to "shoot on sight". Hidden within their headquarters within the Shinra building as Scarlet embarks on a hunt for them, the Turks meet with Reeve to locate the next Materia. Learning that it is in the remains of the Gongaga Mako reactor they, along with Cait Sith, steal a submarine from Junon to travel and evade the Shinra military. Entering the reactor they find AVALANCHE troops already combing the facility for the support Materia. Thanks to the timely arrival of Veld and Shears, who was rescued by Veld in Corel and had been working with him since, the next support Materia was obtained.

When the fugitives Zack and Cloud are resighted, the Turks attempt a Priority-S retrieval attempt, however, they are unable to acquire them before the Shinra military ambushed them. Learning the AVALANCHE was attempting to break into Corel Prison, the Turks presume that a Materia piece must be there and embark across the desert to obtain it. Discovering Shalua Rui in the desert, the Player Turk brings her to shelter in the caverns under the desert. While waiting for her to recover, the Player Turk finds the final support Materia within the caverns while being pursued by AVALANCHE Ravens. Escaping with Shalua, they brave a sandstorm before being cornered. Shalua announces her hatred of the Turks, however, the Ravens still attack. Once again Shears and Veld arrive to support them and Shears takes Shalua to a safe location. However, it is at this juncture that Scarlet catches up to and surrounds the Player Turk and Veld. Attacking them into submission, Scarlet captures Veld and takes him back to Midgar to be executed.

While Tseng, Rude and Reno attempt to discern the location of where Veld is being held, the other Turks and Shears meet in Wall Market and split the Materia orbs amongst themselves before dispatching to look for Elfe. Meanwhile Elena, Gun (Female)'s sister, witnesses a trio of insurgent Ravens and attempts to follow them before getting bored and going home. Assisted by Rufus, Tseng manages to locate Veld and attempts to liberate him while ordering the Player Turk, who is being pursued by Shinra troops through Wall Market, to secure an escape out of Midgar. While abducting a truck to get through checkpoints set up by the military, the Player Turk discovers that not only was the truck being driven by a Raven dressed as a Shinra troop, but that Elena had been kidnapped and was in the truck with them. Eventually, after leaving the truck and having it leave while Elena was still on board, the Player Turk follows it to a train where, onboard, they exchange the support Materia with the Ravens for Elena. Elsewhere in the Sector 5 Slums, Shears is confronted by Fuhito. He opts to go with Fuhito, giving him possession of the support Materia, in order to find Elfe. However, he is instead beaten down and the support Materia stolen from him. While Reno, Rude and Tseng free Veld, the Player Turk commandeers a helicopter to chase after AVALANCHE before they use the support Materia to summon Ziconiaide and kill Elfe to make it whole. Crashing the helicopter into the truck the Ravens were using, the Player Turk witnesses as Fuhito gathers the support Materia around a limp and weak Elfe on the highway and summons Ziconiaide above Midgar. While managing to save Elfe, the Materia inside her fuses with the support Materia on its own and Fuhito ascends to give the newly formed Materia orb to Ziconiaide.

As the Player Turks all chase after Fuhito along the construct created by Ziconiaide's summoning, Tseng, Reno, Rude, Veld and an awakened Elfe are captured by the Shinra military. Splitting into teams of two when the pathways branched into a maze, the Turks come across Behemoths. As the others battle the Behemoths, the Player Turk catches up to Fuhito and is saved from his attack by Shears. Teaming up against the AVALANCHE commander, the Player Turk and Shears manage to defeat Fuhito, however, in an attempt to continue Ziconiaide's awaken he places the Materia inside himself and transforms; mortally wounding Shears in his new form. As the Player Turk manages to best Fuhito even in his transformed state, Fuhito attempts to take them with him in his defeat, however, a dying Shears holds him back and the pair erupt in a blast of light. Meanwhile, confronted with the offer that the Turks would be spared from capture and execution if Veld and Elfe are killed, Tseng turns his gun on the pair and fires. As Tseng leaves with the bodies of Veld and Elfe, Reno and Rude wait for their remaining comrades still fighting Ziconiaide. Reaching the end of the airborne construct, the Player Turk attacks Ziconiaide only to be unable to affect it by themselves. With the arrival of other Turks they manage to damage the monster, however, the other Turks are taken down by the summon and the Player Turk themself is worn down, however, with the memories of the people they met as a Turk fighting their own battles, the Player Turk gathers their strength of will to continue the battle and destroyed Ziconiaide. While destroying Ziconiaide, the shockwave emitted from its destruction destroyed the construct on which the attacking Turks were standing. Reno and Rude could only watch in horror as the entire construction vanishes in an explosion of light.

Exile
Following the defeat of Zirconiade, the Player Turks go into hiding across the Planet; retiring to Midgar, Junon, Costa del Sol, Cosmo Canyon, Icicle Inn, and Wutai. Unbeknownst to them, as Zirconiade had been summoned the Planet had awakened one of its WEAPONs to deal with the threat. However, because the Turks were successful in defeating Zirconiade before the WEAPON's arrival the WEAPON no longer had a purpose. Instead of returning to sleep, the WEAPON started to consider the Turks a threat due to their defeat of Zirconiade and how, technically, they had destroyed what was a large part of the Planet’s ecology. A number of weeks afterwards, Veld, calls the Player Turks to inform them that the WEAPON has now hunting them.

Given an advanced radar system on their PHS to track and hunt the Jade WEAPON in turn and learning that the dark mist that the WEAPON generates and surrounds itself with could only be penetrated by the light given from various Materia Pillars across the Planet, the Turks first locate these pillars to enable themselves to do battle against the WEAPON.

Coming to a location covered in mist, the WEAPON is supported by various oval-like constructs which the Turks battle while the WEAPON attempts to bombard them from above. After numerous hunts and battles across the Planet, the Turks finally manage to destroy the WEAPON and return to their respective lives in exile.

Return
During Meteorfall, Reno oversaw the evacuation of Sector 4 while Rude cleared Sector 2 and Elena cleared Sector 3. Moving to clear Sector 5 together with Tseng, the four are met and assisted by the previous Turks and Veld returning to assist in the evacuation of the city's citizens.

Equipment and Stats
Each Turk has a weapon particular to him or her. Weapon upgrades can be purchased using RP (Rank Points) gained from completing missions. Katana's weapon, the Murasame, is one of the swords wielded by Cloud Strife in Final Fantasy VII. It is possible to have the weapon attacks take on elemental attributes by slotting the appropriate Materia into the weapon.

On the Way to a Smile
While not specified by name, many of the Turks who had gone into hiding following the battle against Zirconiade reappear during the events of Final Fantasy VII as specified in the chapter Case of Shinra. Following Tseng being attacked by Sephiroth in the Temple of the Ancients, Cait Sith (Final Fantasy VII) appears to stable his condition before contacting three of the Turks to bring him to Junon for treatment.

Later on, while observing the ruins of the Shinra building following the attack by the Diamond WEAPON, Reno and Rude recollected the times themselves and the other Turks had spent in their now ruined headquarters, "All the tough times they've been through together with their comrades, the times when they got scolded by their superior, the times when they would tease the girls while they had nothing to do and get teased back." During Meteorfall, the Turks and Veld return to assist in the evacuation of Midgar and, following the Meteor's destruction, the Turks leave, returning to the lives they had obtained in their exile, but also worked to gather intelligence on the current state of the planet from their respective locations; sending the information to Veld who in turn would offer it to Tseng when required.

Trivia

 * While any of the Player Turks can be chosen for Episode 19 and pursue Zack and Cloud as they escape the Nibelheim Mansion. The Turk whose encounter with them is considered canon is Shuriken (Female) (aka "Cissnei") due to events in Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-.