Kaze

Ryusugi "Kaze" Nagoya

Reito no Untenshu
Reiryu-do no Yondan
Go Kamisori Gama no Sekkuku
Agent of the Court of Shooting Stars

Description

~Kaze burns like black nitroglycerin. This lean Japanese swaggers like a thug, and his relatively tall height at 5'10" and 175 pounds assists his fear factor. All the more frightening, Kaze appears to be a maturing man in his mid to late 30s. Experience fuels his vigor. Despite his mien, Kaze seems quiet, sullen, and withdrawn. The man says little, perhaps because his lips are busy sucking on a dangling cigarette. Most frequently, Kaze wears casual black khakis, street shoes, and a silk dress shirt of bold hue. His shirt collar is turned up, even if he's also wearing a leather duster that boasts material of a shimmering value. Kaze occasionally brushes a pale hand through black hair swept fashionably back, mussing it irresponsibly. His chin tilts down, empty gaze staring at the concrete aimlessly. His brown eyes seem sunken and red-rimmed as if he were an insomniac. Early wrinkles and crow's feet at the corners of slanted eyes tighten as he walks. Kaze blends right into the malnourished, apathetic masses: just another junkie awaiting his next fix.~

OOC: Appearance 2; Arcane 3

"Buckle up."

History

Behind the Crosshairs

Rare was it for a fully Awakened member of the Go Kamisori Gama ninja craft to be born and raised outside of a clan estate. Ryusugi "Kaze" Nagoya was born in 1964 under such circumstances, however. Nagoya's father was the infamous sniper-for-hire, Ryusugi "Muchi" Ryota. His mother was Sakiyo Sumi -- a prostitute with an affection for heroin, cocaine, and speed. Nagoya's parents were never married, though he came to accept the label of "bastard" as something of a badge of honor.

Nagoya's father operated out of the town of Akita, which wasn't even located on the same island as the Reiryu Clan estate. Frankly, Nagoya enjoyed and preferred the urban upbringing. He dreaded the visits to the clan estate once every six months or so, finding the place rustic and boring, especially since he had no friends there. Of course, he didn't really have friends in Akita either. His mother didn't do much but get high. His father completed Nagoya's education, teaching him the academia he needed, and focusing on the martial skills of ninjitsu, especially modern ones like the use of firearms.

At least while visiting the estate, the clan elders determined that Nagoya would likely Awaken as his father did. Muchi resisted turning the boy over to their care though, likely due to paternal urges since a child only slowed down Muchi and Sumi's high-adrenaline way of life. His father made sure Nagoya learned respect and reverence for all methods of the Go Kamisori Gama. He was exposed to the bloodshed of the trade early on. Unfortunately, Muchi didn't foresee that Nagoya would pick up bad habits from his mother. At the age of nine, he stole and experimented with some of her speed, popping the pills when neither parent was home once. It became an addiction in short order, the boy reveling in the extra high of energy it gave.

To a degree, it felt tempting to Nagoya to chalk up some of the strangeness in his life to his growing fondness for using speed. His dreams were especially troubling to the boy. They came as nightmares: visions of deep pits or black holes, and he was always slipping and falling into them, or being sucked inexorably into them. The fright of the unknown always startled him awake, but sometimes those dark images haunted his waking hours. He even suffered hallucinations: chasms seemed to yawn open at his very feet sometimes. And sometimes, the fear would strike Nagoya's heart so much that he would faint. When he woke up, he was always on the other side of the envisioned chasm, as if he jumped over it while unconscious. Nagoya's father was not aware of the boy's quiet drug use, but he recognized the first signs of an Awakening pubescent, and he planned to instigate the full chrysalis.

The Black Hole

The opportunity for Nagoya to Awaken didn't arrive until 1979, not long after the boy's fifteenth birthday. Muchi taught Nagoya how to drive and the youth demonstrated a keen knack behind the wheel. One afternoon though, when Nagoya was cruising alone, another hallucination taunted him. This time a dark chasm opened up right on the road. Nagoya veered off the road sharply to avoid the apparent mirage, and he crashed hard into a telephone pole. The boy was banged up badly and ambulanced to a hospital; Wild Talent didn't kick in to prevent the accident or heal his body, perhaps as Muchi hoped. Yet while he lay unconscious in the hospital, he felt a deep desiring and an ambiguous sensation of…ubiquity. Nagoya couldn't describe because of how overwhelming the feeling became, but he found himself everywhere. Every nook and cranny of the planet, every face and hidden secret, was revealed to Nagoya at the same time. It was enough stimuli to drive someone insane…or Awake.

Once fully recuperated, his father picked Nagoya up from the hospital. The older man recognized his son's state of awareness, as Nagoya surveyed the land with a quiet savvy. The omnipresent senses faded once his body healed, but he could still reach out and feel things he couldn't see with his naked eye. Muchi once more took his son under wing, now teaching the boy the secrets of "ninja magic", called kage-waza. Nagoya learned the nature and duty inherent to the possession of such mystickal power. He continued to merge old beliefs with new, modern elements. Nagoya developed more of the traditions during his visits to the clan estate, but his father guided his skills. Training and studying seemed to dominate Nagoya's life now. His use of speed only increased and he found his own dealer instead of stealing from his mother. But Nagoya also enjoyed the occasional bout of daydreaming, yearning for a bright future, and this helped counteract the banality of learning how to kill and how to survive in the city.

When 1982 rolled around, Muchi decided Nagoya was ready to graduate training and be considered a self-sufficient agent of Clan Reiryu. He set up a test for his son, creating an obstacle course of sorts in Akita. Nagoya raced through the course on foot, by car, or even by bicycle. The vehicles he employed were stolen right off the street. Nagoya's sharp reflexes and swift rhythm of motion scored a record time on the course and earned him the codename of Kaze. He also graduated his father's training program, earning the shodan rank (1st-degree black belt) in Reiryu ninjitsu.

Family Business

But Kaze wasn't free of his parents just yet. He willingly apprenticed himself to Muchi for the next three years. Although he mastered the basics under his father's training, there was still much to learn. He picked up the business of working for (and against) criminal enterprises. Kaze networked through his father, making contacts in the underworld. Kaze worked mainly as a driver; although he was skilled with firearms, he wasn't the marksman that his dad was. But his driving skills were impeccable.

Satori marked Kaze's apprenticeship to his father, too. He recognized and honored the reality that he needed senior guidance to avoid blindly stepping into the black pits that haunted his life. Kaze also labored to exert self-control over his speed addiction. Unfortunately, the best he could do to cut down on the addiction was to "supplement" it with a lesser one: he took up cigarette smoking, too. At least it cut down on his speed use, making him cooler and calmer. Kaze earned his father's respect "on the job", obeying his advice and exceeding expectations. The apprenticeship ended when Sumi grew deathly ill. Muchi "retired", taking Sumi to the Reiryu Clan estate and living there. Kaze was on his own at last.

The young operative continued to work as a driver for criminals, especially yakuza of the Seibuozuna family. He worked his father's connections in the region. He drove for bank robberies, deliveries, car bombings, drive-by shootings, and VIP chauffeuring/security. Kaze was always paid handsomely, but he reveled in the action and danger above all. His visits to the clan estate became much more sporadic and brief, often failing to meet the bi-annual minimums his father once maintained. This fueled the clan's concern for Kaze.

The frequent close calls to life and limb scarcely swayed Kaze from his chosen path. Indeed, another flash of insight in '88 made Kaze recognize that living a hard, fast life did the opposite of what timid people feared. Instead of shortening his life expectancy, it sustained it. He avoided apathy and despair through his regular shots of adrenaline. When no adrenaline boosts were to be found, Kaze chain-smoked or popped speed. Luckily for Kaze, sober or high, he rarely encountered other shen in his line of work. During the occasional contact with gaki vampires or Syndicate Technocrats, Kaze played it super-cool, and nothing went sour.

Godless

At least Kaze did not entirely neglect his clan as some feared he would. A desire to focus on more esoteric skills required him to study under his father or other instructors. But hey, that gave him a reason to stay longer at the estate. He couldn't hide his addictions for long under elder scrutiny. Discussion of his personal issues devolved swiftly into arguments and criticism for his "nitro" life, his "fast and furious" pace. Some elders considered forcing Kaze to quit cold turkey, but they decided to let the young man try and prove his inner strength first.

Meanwhile, Kaze's focus on kage-waza could not have come more in time. While running a delivery mission for the yakuza to the city of Morioka, Kaze encountered a group of arrogant "holy men". The delivery was a child who ran away from their temple and Kaze faithfully brought the young boy back. The "holy men" paid Kaze appropriately but behaved in a disgustingly condescending manner. Kaze refused to bow down and kiss their ass, especially as he recognized that they were shen. He left Morioka, and foresaw and evaded a squad of suicide bombers these "holy men" dispatched to punish the "arrogant shinta that refused to pay homage". They blew themselves up without taking their intended victim, and for now Kaze just drove home to Akita. There he executed a bit of research to discover that those jerks were called Daityas, "little gods" or hsien that demanded human worship.

Kaze was more than content to live and let live, but that only lasted a few years. By 1994, the Seibuozuna were left furious with the dealings they suffered with the Morioka Daityas. They hired a common hitman to even the odds, but the Daityas caught and slaughtered him. So they hired Kaze to take care of them. Without compunction, Kaze drove to Morioka with C-4 attached to his car. He leapt from the vehicle at the last moment, and the car plowed right into the Daityas' temple. It detonated and demolished the whole temple, killing everyone inside, even women and children. "Innocents" were not a shield that worked against Kaze!

The Daitya survivors met with the yakuza in 1995 to finalize a treaty. Instead, they unleashed a divine fury on the mobsters, slaying many. Kaze was on VIP security duty that day. He burst into the fray and helped some of the highest-ranking yakuza escape the elemental bombardment. Once they were outside and safe, Kaze recognized the chance to finish these Daityas off. He hopped into his car and zipped into a multi-story car garage, looping all the way to the roof. He vaulted the roof ledge and with perfect (mystickally aided) timing and accuracy, the car crashed through the windows of the office building where the Daityas and yakuza gunmen remained. Kaze ran those damnable hsien down (and a few of the yakuza shooters, too, but to make an omelet...).

Nitro

His main contractors were in a bad way, but Kaze just took the time to soak up urban pleasures, at least when he wasn't training. The tattered Seibuozuna family eventually recovered but only because gaki took a vested interest in its survival. Its membership was replenished by hiring more thugs. Kaze still received steady work from the yakuza but…the work grew more and more dangerous. A war between rival yakuza families began, dominating the northern region of the Honshu Island.

Kaze discovered that it was a struggle for power between young gaki, known as Bamboo Princes, and older and better-established gaki, called Mandarins. The Princes had taken over the Seibuozuna. With a shrug, Kaze knew he could handle the pressure, and secretly accepted work from both sides. He wasn't the only shinta working with the Bamboo Princes though. A computer hacker babe of the Craft known as the Five Rings Gama started working for the Seibuozuna in 2001. Kaze started dating the young woman, whose name was Natsuma Aimi. With a steady girlfriend, Kaze began to contemplate his future. Kaze knew his daredevil life worked for him, but he was only dodging the doom of oblivion. He finally accepted that he needed to overcome this envisioned doom, not run away from it. And a new lifestyle could help make that happen. Kaze wondered if having friends, genuine comrades, and even a lover would help or hinder? For now, Aimi only helped him, and they shared illuminations about their distinct methods of "magick".

Kaze and Aimi's romance was fiery and all too short-lived. As violence between the gangs climaxed, the Princes ended up crushed and the Seibuozuna wiped off the map. Kaze came home to find Aimi literally ripped asunder by a voracious vampire. Gore splattered her computer. Hatred and a hunger for revenge burned in Kaze's breast, but he couldn't entertain such privileges. He knew he'd barely be able to save his own ass. He was considered a treacherous loose end and the Mandarins sent their gaki killers after him, too. Kaze fled by car and they chased. He could have easily escaped, being the far better driver.

Instead, Kaze decided to destroy his attackers; for all he knew, one of them murdered his Aimi anyway! He zigged and zagged around his enemies, confusing them not just with his advanced maneuvering but spatial displacements -- kage-waza that didn't even enter into the equation of undead understanding. When they were run ragged and confused, Kaze paused long enough to attack, wounding or slaying his pursuers. But perhaps because of the blatancy of his efforts, or the stress placed on his car, the nitro tanks exploded. Kaze blamed Paradox in the end. Regardless, he was badly wounded and nearly killed when his car exploded.

Dark Highway

Kaze teleported himself away from Akita to avoid further repercussions. He returned to the Reiryu Clan estate to stay and recover. He also stewed over Aimi's murder and contemplated his own future. Complicating his intentions came a demand from the elders that he surrender himself to a forced cure of his addiction to drugs. Grudgingly, Kaze accepted, but rejected a mental cure. That he insisted on conquering himself. The elders relented on that notion, purifying his body at least of its need to consume the chemicals of speed and cigarettes.

At the same time, while Kaze relaxed from his previously high-paced life, he trained with his father once more. He honed some of the skills that were lacking and prepared to return to life as an urban operative. But the elders had a different idea. Since Kaze lived so long in isolation from his brethren, and it only served him poorly, he was required to join a cabal of Reiryu ninja. In 2006, Kaze was assigned to the Reito Cabal based in the Little Asia district of Kansas City, Missouri. Kaze took a few months to learn English, then reluctantly emigrated to America. He wasn't sure what this cabal would do for his own hopes and fears, but Kaze was still committed to giri. He would trust in his seniors and provide the Reito with all of his special abilities. And maybe, just maybe, Kaze would make genuine friends and comrades at last.

Significant Other

Ishiwa "Senpu" Amaya was the first member of the Reito Cabal that Kaze acquainted in June of 2006. They played each other cool for awhile, then began to enjoy high-adrenaline activities together, such as hang-gliding and bungee-jumping and even parachuting. The excitement they derived from such activities led them into each other's arms. Both were assigned to the Reito due to their antisocial behavior. Thus, it was quite appropriate (and perhaps even planned) that these two should hook up. It's probable that they will remain an "item" for some time due to their mutual hobbies, but it's not likely that they will grow more serious than impassioned lovers.

Senpu

Weakness
Speed Demon

Kaze is headed on a one-way collision course with death. With his addictions and desires to speed as if to escape his inner demons, it's just an inevitable doom if he doesn't find something to improve his lot. Of course, this fate would be all the more ironic, considering it's all a compulsive and instinctual urge to flee death.

Likelihood of Corruption

High.

Already a murderous member of the Go Kamisori Gama and addicted to drugs to boot, it wouldn't be hard to nudge Kaze the wrong way. Luckily, his cabal can keep him in check -- or erase him before he shames himself too much, if need-be.

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