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Shaito-san Backstory

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Underbridge

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« on: <12-14-15/2253:14> »
This is a blurb about a character I made for a high-end game (500 BP). Same guy GM'd these sessions that GM'd the crazy two-year campaign in which we built a mega-corp from a clothing store, wasted Aztechnology's Seattle presence, created gene-mods that melted you into goo, restored essence, & used some clever hacking to land-grab the Barrens (joint ownership in the land w/ Aztek). We didn't get too far, but we did get some really nice swag (mana-tech weapons & BL2's eridium guns). Like I said, guy liked crazy games.

This game had different players: we had a human bio-augmented/cybered Face who called himself "Suit" (he always wore expensive suits, and insisted on everyone else wear them as well.) Suit ran an above-board agency called "Silver Tongue Consulting;" we were basically a fixer's main crew. Good times. We also had a really scary human street-samurai with holographic tattoos on his forearms; he kept doing Yakuza ones and I sat there waiting on him to flash the wrong ink. Other characters dropping in and out were a human phys-ad ninja racist, and a human pimp/street shaman. My character was the only metahuman, a mystic adept banshee (HMHVV-Infected Elf) inspired by Zero from Borderlands 2 (imagine the ghost head & one of the super-dark gray outfits). Never once willingly took off the armor or helmet around others, & the phys-ad kept blowing her assensing rolls, so basically nobody found out. That's right, folks, ninja to the gills.

Here are that ninja's humble beginnings.

Shaito-San Back-story
Real Name: Shaito
Aliases: Akira Kurosawa, Chip Jones
Meta-Type: Elf
Sex: Male
Age: 34
Height: 5'8"
Weight 150 lb.
Hair: Black (shaved bald)
Eyes: Brown
Awakened: Mystic Adept
Cyber ware: None

   Shaito was born in 2037 to parents that hastily fled the hospital as they knew they could never afford the medical costs associated with birth. This left the now-orphaned elf in a vulnerable position. He was soon relegated to foster care and spent his first six years there, whereupon he was adopted by Japanese parents that were operating as a cover for the Yakuza. The criminal organization adopted orphans at an early age and moved them to a training and indoctrination compound located outside the city, where the children were brutally instructed in the ways of the ninja: stealth, patience, martial arts combat, and subservience. Upon their 16th year they were given their first pair of ninja-to, the traditional blades of the elite killers known and feared throughout history. Like all the others in his cohort, Shaito only had the one name: as a child with no family he did not rate a family name, and was taught that he was merely a living weapon to be used or discarded at his master's whim. And so it was, for two years Shaito carried out assignments with deadly precision and skill, earning several tattoos and a deserved reputation as a ruthlessly efficient killer. This existence would not last; however, as Shaito found himself unwittingly involved in the intricate plotting of those that he called master. Two opposing zaibatsu, Lord Shijumi and Lord Takeda, had developed a long lasting enmity, based on embarrassing the other at any given opportunity, that could only result in the other's demise. Takeda made his move first, arranging a meet between Yakuza and a rival faction.

   Shaito was ordered to infiltrate and kill all of them, as he was instructed that the Yakuza involved were acting outside of Takeda's instructions. He was told that he likely would not survive the attempt, and so practiced the ancient ritual of the kamikaze. Donning all-white attire and the traditional headband of the doomed warrior, he made his preparations and drove to the junkyard where the deal was planned, armed with his signature swords and paired suppressed SMG's. He eliminated the exterior guards with automatic fire while making a move to run along a wall and leap over the barbed wire and sheet metal fence that enclosed the junkyard where the two gangs were meeting. With no alerts sounded he stalked the interior guards and dispatched them, then climbed a pile of crushed cars to observe his targets. Throwing down some flash bangs, he shut his eyes and waited for the disorienting grenades to explode, then leapt into the fray. Spinning and slashing, he killed all of them, ignoring the occasional wounds that he took--after all, he knew that he was already dead anyway, and didn't regard his life as something worth keeping. He was a weapon, and weapons were sometimes destroyed: such is the cost of war. Unbeknownst to Shaito, a team of Lone Star agents were standing by to arrest the gangsters in the middle of their deal, and as they rushed in from the other side of the junkyard, Shaito moved to meet them. He killed all of them, and when the Doc Wagon extraction team showed up a few minutes into the fight, he killed them, too. Somewhere in the midst of all this, Takeda, who had been observing remotely from by carefully concealed drones, picked up his comm link and addressed the bloodied ninja: "Your work here is done. You are to turn your blades upon yourself. You are released from service." Shaito kneeled, angling one blade to slice into his liver and the other to pierce his heart and lungs as he fell, he paid no mind to the Lone Star back-up team that moved into the area, screaming at him to drop his weapons and surrender. Ignoring their demands, he drove one deadly blade into his side, and prepared to finish the job when a large voice bellowed: "Oh, no, asshole, you ain't getting away that easy." Telekinetic force whipped his last blade away from him, and as he fell he saw monstrously large boots thud next to him. The team's resident combat mage, a troll, reached down with a prepared spell, healing even as he removed the ninja-to from Shaito's side. In too much pain to do anything other than cough blood, the wounded Shaito rolled onto his back and looked at his captor with eyes blurred by agony, only to receive a vicious blow to the face that rendered him unconscious.

   He came to much later in a Lone Star prison hospital, uncertain of the future held for him. His masters had discarded him, but he had not died. It was an unacceptable circumstance; however, he could not bring himself to commit suicide. Perhaps if he waited, his masters would contact him, give him guidance: he need only maintain discipline. The next week was a blur of questioning; increasingly rough interrogations that were covered up with magical healing. Eventually they put him through a battery of psychological examination: through it all Shaito brooked no resistance, nor uttered a single word, simply looking at his captors with a bored, indifferent expression. His trial was something of a media affair: a lone killer had slain nearly a dozen men: 14 to be exact, but the death penalty was not called for. Instead, Shaito was condemned to surveillance at a max-security psychiatric institution for diagnosis and possible rehabilitation. Shaito found some solace in the all-white clothes which prisoners were clothed. He viewed his incarceration as a sort of purgatory: he had died, and he was awaiting judgment. The sentence was the work of Shijumi, who had grown wise to Takeda's plot: the Yakuza that Shaito had murdered were his own, the rival faction a possible business partner. Shaito had been ordered to interrupt the potential alliance, thus humiliating Shijumi. However, this foolish rivalry between the two zaibatsu had gone on for quite long enough. In the next month, Shijumi arranged for Takeda to be arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to the same institution that Shaito was incarcerated. Before Takeda arrived, Shijumi sent an agent to meet Shaito. It was the only time anyone had ever come to visit him, and would be the last time as well. His instructions were clear: befriend and protect Takeda, and await further instructions.

   On the day that Lord Takeda was brought to the facility, Shaito made his way to the zaibatsu. It was easy, really, to gain Takeda's confidence: the man was unaccustomed to being ordered around and his fear of the other inmates so apparent as to mark him as easy prey for the more violent and aggressive ones. Shaito merely stood before Takeda, looking at the zaibatsu with the same look of indifference that wolves regard a human in the woods: attack, flee, or stand there, it matters not. Flee and I let you leave; attack me and you die; stand there and I await your decision. Takeda had only the slightest recollection of the ninja he had condemned, until Shaito pulled back the sleeves of his blouse, revealing his tattoos. Then understanding came to Takeda: here was an ally, an underling, and a dangerous one at that: someone who knew their place and would serve unquestioningly. He began to look at his surroundings in a much more different light. During the next two weeks, Takeda never went anywhere without Shaito nearby: only once did an inmate attempt violence upon Takeda: Shaito sprinted over, seemingly from nowhere, and snapped the aggressor's neck with a single kick. From that day forward, no one bothered the elderly Japanese man. Takeda was busy at work in the facility, his agents visited him often as he conducted business from the relative safety of the prison—even arranging for some of the guards' replacement and certain creature comforts brought to his cell. Eventually, Shaito received a letter from one of Shijumi's agents, in the night as Takeda slept: a haiku, but in reality a code. "Kill him," read the message, and this Shaito did, the very next morning on their way down to breakfast: snapping Takeda's neck and pushing him down a flight of stairs. The murder was written off as an accident, and one month later Shaito found himself before a committee; he was being considered for parole, fully rehabilitated with a full bank of psychological assessments to back it up. That day, he was released from the institution. As he walked to his freedom, a car was waiting; the driver was a Japanese man holding a sign bearing the name "Shaito-san;" inside were two ladies, one dressed in red and the other purple, waiting to satisfy his every whim. He entered the car, and as the driver pulled away from the prison and the geisha began their ministrations, Shaito stared forward and simply said: "No."