Nakamura Kazuma
Legacy Name: Nakamura Kazuma

Rain's Tender Embrace
The streets of Tokyo were never dark. Imposing buildings rose up like the plagued trunks of trees in a metallic forest, each with hundreds of points of light shining from within them-- they were the leaves that refused to fall. In Tokyo, leafless winter did not come. Not ever. This was a bustling metropolis teeming with people even in the middle of the night. They dragged their sorrows with them as the chattered with their friends in cafes about things that didn't really matter. They lied and cheated, they cried and took vengeance, they smiled and forgave. This place was home to a whole spectrum of people who were united only by their knowledge of where they were. This was Tokyo. This was the metal forest with leaves of light. The people were bonded by this knowledge.

Within this metal metropolis, within this glowing world of connections, there existed a dark and fearsome underside. Within the cover of the shadows, there were people who stood apart from the city. They couldn't connect. They couldn't share in the bond. Fearful, frustrated, and lonely they banded together to form their own bonds. They became Tokyo's darkness.

There was one man among them whose twisted ambition allowed him to stand apart from even Tokyo's outcasts. He stood deep within the darkness, apart from the entirety of the city. He could not relate to this so called metal forest in any way. He could not see the light. The only link he had with the city was its noise. He could hear the ceaseless buzz of human conversation. He could hear them laughing, crying, and screaming as they made or broke connections with friends, lovers, and enemies. He could feel them move around him, he could feel them brush past him as if he were not there.

To those in the light, he was scorned. He did not know Tokyo, not like they did.

Within Tokyo's shadows, he was feared. His name spilled across the shadows in a ceaseless whisper. It floated down from the heavens in a soft, unyielding shower.

Kazuma, Kazuma.

He was the deepest shadow in all of Tokyo. He was battered and ignored by those with connections. He was feared and respected by those without. He stood above the city, though he was at the lowest rung of society.

This is his life. This is his story of pain, of isolation. This is his tale of love, of loss. This is Nakamura Kazuma, a man burdened by insatiable longing and desire.

Shibuya, Tokyo
Shopping Complex
Midday

The windowed walls of one of Shibuya's many indoor shopping complexes revealed a complicated sky. An impressive mosaic had spread itself across Tokyo's heavens. Dark, almost black, imposing rain clouds mixed with softer, less-threatening gray ones. The building was crowded with groups of teenagers attempting to have fun even on their potentially damp day off from school. A group of young schoolgirls stood near the stairs of the second floor. Each one had their hair styled elaborately. One had pigtail braids, another had an impossibly high ponytail, and the third had curled her hair into tight, perfect ringlets. "Have you heard the rumors?" asked the one with the ponytail.

"Which rumors? I've heard quite a few," said the braids. She and the curly haired girl laughed together. Ponytail apparently wasn't very liked.

"The one about that group rising to power in Shibuya," Ponytail whispered urgently. "They've been making quite a splash in the underground. And I mean major. They've taken over most of Shibuya's... well... dark side in only a year."

"Oh," drawled Curls sourly as if she had heard all about it. "You mean that gang, Ame. Their leader is supposed to be a real psycho. They won't amount to anything, I can assure you."

"But..." said Ponytail timidly, "I don't know about that. Something tells me that Shibuya might not be the best place to hang out anymore..."

"Then go hang out somewhere else!" laughed Pigtails, and started to walk down the stairs with Curls. Ponytail frowned, but followed. Halfway down the staircase, she turned and looked out at the dark sky. Her eyes filled with worry, but she shook her head and continued her descent.

Shibuya, Tokyo
Shopping Complex Rooftop
Early Afternoon

A man stood on the roof of one of Tokyo's many tall buildings with his head angled up toward the agitated sky. A gust of wind battered his long, silvery-blue hair, but he didn't seem bothered. The man loved this sky. The world felt frozen without the warming rays of the sun, but the crisp, yet gentle gusts of wind that descended to where he stood filled the world with an atmosphere of mystery. Yes, when the sky threatened rain, anything could happen. Days like this were filled with mystery, with chance encounters, with desperate partings. The sky observed, the sky listened. And when it rained, the sky was screaming these stories out to the inhabitants of the earth below. All they had to do was listen and they could hear. The man standing on the roof truly believed this, and he stopped to listen to the sky whenever he could.

"Kazuma-sama," came a timid voice from behind him.

"Hm?" Kazuma grunted without turning around.

"Shion found a couple of punks dealing in our territory."

"Mess them up, then turn them back out on the streets," Kazuma sighed, and waved his hand dismissively.

"You want to keep them alive, sir?" the timid voice seemed confused.

"Kill them and the other nobodies will see them as martyrs. They get scared, but they get resentful. Disgrace them, and everyone will disown them. They'll be disgusting. They'll be as good as dead, yet their pathetic hearts will insist on beating. Their mouths will move to tell the story of how stupid they were. Kill them, and there's only silence. Silence is useless. Voices are useful.

"Just... " He turned around here as if to make sure the timid man understood the gravity of the next statement. "Just make sure you're thorough. I don't want them moving any time soon." Kazuma smirked and leaned back onto the fence surrounding the roof and grabbed the cold, metal rings with his hands as he did so.

"Y-yessir," the man seemed to have passed from timid to fearful. Kazuma knew the man had only understood about half of what he had said, but he let that slide. He didn't really care about how intelligent his underlings were right now. No, he had more interesting things to think about.

A loud clap of thunder shook Tokyo to its core as Kazuma tilted his head up to the sky. He smiled a broad smile of relief, of true contentment. Then he waited. The thunder boomed again, this time no doubt followed by a visible flash of lightning.

'Five, four, three... two... one...'

The sky began to scream its mournful song. Kazuma closed his eyes and laughed as the water soaked him. The rain knew his suffering. In their short journey from the clouds to the ground they couldn't make connections, either. Kazuma and the rain both existed on a lonely plane.

The only difference between Kazuma and the rain was that even when the rain ceased Kazuma remained.

Shibuya, Tokyo
An abandoned warehouse
Evening

"Sir, we've taken care of those punks as you ordered. They'll be sure to warn the streets not to mess around on our territory." The man speaking had a clear, steady voice with a slight tinkle of mystery. His name was Akira, and Kazuma trusted him above all his other subordinates.

"Good," Kazuma responded genially. "Track them and kill them in a week or two when they've been forgotten about."

"Of course, sir," responded Akira without asking questions. Kazuma wasn't quite sure if Akira understood his train of thought or just went along with it unquestioningly. It was probably the latter, he thought.

And what was Kazuma's thought process? Kazuma hated Tokyo. Tokyo shunned him, denied him happiness and comfort. Kazuma wanted Tokyo to bow to him. And for that, he wanted power. He wanted to be known, he wanted to be heard, he wanted to be feared. He wanted every soul in Tokyo to stop to listen to the cries of the sky on those damp and mysterious days. He wanted them to hear the rain. So he would build up Ame until there wasn't a single person who did not know the name, who did not shiver when they heard it.

Tokyo
Ten Years Earlier

A young boy of about ten years old with short, spiked light blue hair sat on the narrow sill of a window in a suffocating apartment. His face was pressed against the cold, smooth glass, and his eyes were closed. He was listening. Outside, rain fell in an unceasing torrent. He heard the hurried footsteps of people down on the streets as they ran from one destination to the next. He heard the piercing pat pat pat of the rain against the window, the walls, the ground. But there was more than that. Within the soft patter of the rain, he heard the voices of the world. He heard the sounds of weddings and of murders. He heard the sounds of love and those of rejection. Every story of every person on earth poured straight into his accepting ears.

But then the rain stopped. The footsteps on the streets slowed. The pat pat pat and accompanying stories ceased. And reality descended upon the ears of the young boy. Suddenly, he heard maniacal shouts of the woman in the next room as she tried to reason with today's man; he smelled the overwhelming stench of the substance keeping her lucidity at bay; he felt the biting cold of the unheated apartment.

The boy carefully slid down from the windowsill and made his way slowly across the tiny room. Soon, his hands found the handle for a cupboard and he pulled it open. Food, he needed food. It had been so long since had last eaten. Please let there be food. But, when he reached inside the cupboard, his hands found only dust.

The maniacal woman burst into the room. "You there, boy, get out of here. You not wanted right now. Got some more people coming over."

The boy didn't bother to turn towards his mother. He just made his way to the front door of the apartment as quickly as possible. He stumbled into the hall, down the stairs, and into the street. The rain resumed.

"Please," he whispered to the sky. "Please help me find a place to stay until it's all over." And the sky whispered back. It guided him into an alley a few blocks from where he stood now where he could huddle against the wall and listen to the stories of the world until the storm in his apartment had passed. He hoped the storm in the sky would last forever. It was his one and only connection.

He had been born into poverty, unwanted. He had never met his father, and he doubted his mother even knew which man his father was. He had been kicked around and left alone since the first day of his life: he was surprised his mother hadn't just finished him off by now. She didn't hold back when she was angry, that was for sure. He had learned to fear her right from the start.

The first time Kazuma had been ordered out of the apartment, he had only stood in the middle of the room with a look of confusion on his face. He would never forget the way she had looked on that sunny afternoon. Her face was full of unclean sores and her black hair was matted and knotted into an imposing mane. Her dry, cracked lips turned into a snarl when Kazuma refused to move, and he soon found himself against the wall.

"You dirty boy, get out of here this instant!" she cried. But when Kazuma once again refused to move, she came at him. He remembered the way her fists fell upon his delicate skin. he remembered the way her yellowed nails had clawed at his face and chest. He remembered being thrown once again across the room. He remembered the way his head cracked against the wall opposite the one he had just been against. He remembered opening his eyes. The world was black. The fists descended again and again. He felt the pain get duller and duller until finally there was nothing.

He woke up on the street in front of the apartment. He felt the warming rays of the sun, but he could not see them. He was utterly alone.

He had tried to win the sympathy of his neighbors and other people on he streets, but his no doubt ragged and unsightly appearance turned them all away from him. They didn't want to anything to do with a brat who was unwanted by his mother. They didn't want anything to do with a child who made his mother angry and unhappy. At least, that's what Kazuma felt.

So he huddled in the alleyways and waited for the day the rain would guide him to happiness.

Shibuya, Tokyo
Kazuma's Apartment
Evening

Ame had been gaining power. It had been six years since Kazuma joined the small, ragtag group of misled street punks. He had quickly risen to their head with the guidance of the rain, and he had quickly brought the group to power in Tokyo's underground with the same advice. The rain spoke to him, it drove him. Whatever the rain told him to do, he would do it. The rain would make him happy. The rain had answered his pleas for salvation.

Pat, pat, pat.

Kazuma lay on his back on his narrow bed as the rain began to fall.

"It is time," the rain whispered as it fell against his window pane. "It is time to show Tokyo how fearsome you truly are. it is time to win their attention." And the rain told him its plan to do so. Kazuma grinned as he listened. It was perfect, just perfect.

Shibuya, Tokyo
Abandoned Warehouse
Morning

This was it. This was the moment that Kazuma revealed Ame's true mission to his people. Soon they would reach out of Tokyo's putrid shadows and grasp the ankles of the light. They would drag all of that light back down into Tokyo's depths where they would reign over all. The rain had told him this. It had whispered to his soul that this was the only sure path to happiness. This was the rain's commandment. Kazuma was to be the rain's prophet. But for it all to work as the rain had said, Ame needed to know. They needed to know what he was and what they were. He inhaled deeply. His whole body trembled with excitement.

"People of Ame!" Kazuma exclaimed as he stood before them. His arms were spread out to his sides as if he were going to embrace his entire assembly. The building was teeming with members of his gang. He heard them shuffling around in excitement. It had been a long time since their leader had addressed them in such a manner. "Today I am here to ask you a question.

“How do you describe a raindrop? It’s a tiny, seemingly insignificant bit of water, that when combined with a thousand of its brothers brings beauty to the land. But when you’re faced with the task of describing just one drop, what do you say?

“Brave, yet cowardly in the same breath? The basis of life and yet a symbol of despair? Beauty in a natural form?

“Unique?

"Tell me, brothers and sisters. Tell me what a raindrop is."

There was only silence and astonishment in the room. Ame had expected a short, direct speech about some sort of new objective, not a poetic sermon. Yet they dared not raise their voices to express this. Kazuma was merciless. He would make them feel comfortable with their comment. He would make it seem as if he accepted their insolence as a joke. But they wouldn't wake up the next day.

"I am the rain." Kazuma said simply. The members of Ame looked at each other incredulously, and an air of discontent filled the room. "I am the rain in human form. I am the messenger of the skies. And I will lead us to power and prosperity. That you can count on." The incredulity grew. "Do you doubt me?!" shouted their leader. All fell silent and still. No one dared to even breathe. Kazuma said nothing.

Then the rain fell.

"But it was sunny when we came in here, wasn't it?" whispered a few of the members to each other.

At the head of the assembly, raised above the rest on a cement platform at the back of the room, Kazuma smiled. The rain fell harder. "Yes, I am rain. I am rain and now I shall speak.

"I shall speak to you of a dream that we must aspire to bring into reality. I shall speak to you of a power that we must strive to possess.

"It is time, brothers and sisters, for the people of Tokyo to know despair. Today they hurry around the town with smiles on their faces and happiness in their hearts. They meet with friends and loved ones and laugh. They know nothing of our struggles. They know nothing of loneliness, of meaninglessness.

"But we will make them learn! The people of Tokyo will learn how it feels to be hopeless!"

At this point, the angry hearts of the crowd began to stir. The rain fell harder, a hypnotic metronome guiding their leader's speech. They began to believe his impossible words, for with Kazuma it seemed that anything was possible. The sunny skies had rained for him. At twenty-one he was the head of the strongest gang in Shibuya, perhaps in Tokyo.

"The people of Tokyo will weep! No longer will they hurry to rendezvous with their shallow relations! No longer will they walk with smiles and a light step. They will be on our level. Beneath us, even!

"They shall cower in fear as our power grows, soon even afraid to move from their homes. All shall know our name and the mere mention of it will cause a wave of fear and panic to wash over all who are nearby.

"And it shall be our job to enforce that fear, to embed it in their hopeless minds. We will strike down mercilessly. And soon, we shall take the entire city in our palm.

We are Ame! We are the messengers of the rain, of the skies! We bring the will of the gods down upon this infernal city!"

Kazuma had worked his crowd up into an unstoppable fury. Some foolishly cried, "Burn everything!" or "We'll make them cry!" He had won the favor of his audience with his emotional words and commanding presence. But now...

"Everyone be calm! For now, we must work step by step. We already control the underground. We have the drug and sex industries at our beck and call. And our next step requires caution and stealth. We must wash over Tokyo like a phantom. They are not to know us until it is too late to stop us."

"What must we do, Kazuma-sama?" asked Akira from the front of the crowd.

"Our first task..." Kazuma paused and smiled devilishly. "Our first task is to cause a chain of mysterious disappearances. People vanish from the streets without a trace. Don't let anyone feel safe. Take them alone as well as in groups. Don't favor an age or a sex. Also, you aren't to touch a hair on their squealing heads. Not yet, anyway. Tempt them off the streets and then lock them up in our safe houses relatively unharmed."

"Relatively?" Came the call from the middle of the crowd. The rest snickered.

"Yes, relatively," Kazuma said with an air of disinterest. "Now we begin! Let Tokyo tremble in its metallic shoes! And for god's sake don't let anyone catch you!"

Outside, the rain whispered excitedly.

"And so the shadow begins his conquest!" hissed one voice as it hit the windows of the warehouse.

"Happiness, Kazuma! Happiness will be yours!

"Steal the people off the streets! Lock them up, make Tokyo weep!" The rain chanted words of encouragement in Kazuma's ear as the gang dispersed to begin their task.

"But beware..." Came one voice, quieter than a whisper. Kazuma had to strain his ears to hear it. "Beware the temptation... Remember Kazuma, we are your only bonds. Only we truly care for you. Do not forget."

"Steal the people off the streets! Lock them up, make Tokyo weep!

"Happiness, Kazuma! Happiness!

The rain fell harder.

"Happiness, conquest, steal the people, Kazuma, happiness, lock them up, shadow begins, make Tokyo weep!

"Beware."