TALON
Street Name: Talon   B: 4   Reaction:  4   Karma Pool: 1
Real Name: Takahashi   Q: 4   Initiative +2d6   Current: 15
Gender: Male   S: 5   Combat Pool: 6   Total: 15
Race: Human   C: 3 (4)   Magic Pool: 4      
Age: 25   I: 3 (7)   damage track
Hair: Black   W: 4  
Eyes: Green        
Height: 5'9"   Essence: 4.1  
Weight: 180 lb.   Magic: 2  
 

 
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Skills:     Physical Adept Powers
Unarmed Combat 2   Imp. Hearing: Amp
Firearms 4   Imp. Hearing: Damper
Etiquette (Street) 3   Imp. Hearing: Select Sound Filter
Etiquette (Corporate) 2   Imp Hearing: High Frequency
Sorcery 4  
Conjuring 3  
Magic Theory 3  
Enchanting (Talismongering) 1(3)  
City Speak 9  
Japanese 7  
 

 
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Cyberware:   Bioware
Alpha Softlink 4   Trauma Damper
Alpha FIFF Memory : 30MP   Synaptic Accelerator
Alpha Encephalon 2   Cerebral Booster 2
Math SPU lvl 4   Reflex Recorder (firearms-pistol)
Alpha Smartlink II   Reflex Recorder (unarmed combat )
Cybereyes   Reflex Recorder (stealth -urban)
---flare comp   Reflex Recorder (bike -two-wheeled)
---protective covers  
---thermographic  
---lowlight  
 

 
 
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Spells Drain P/M Dur Force Type
Fashion  [(f/2)+2]M
P
I
1
M
Makeover  [(f/2)+2]M
P
I
1
M
Cripple Limb   RF [(f/2)]S
P
I
1(2)
M
Personal Silence  E  [(f/2)+1]S
P
S
1(3)
M
Flame Aura  EF  [(f/2)+2]M
P
S
1(3)
M
Gecko Crawl   RF  [(f/2)+1]M
P
S
1(2)
M
Flare  EF  [(f/2)]L
P
S
1(3)
M
Shatterspell   E  [(f/2)]S
P
I
1(3)
M
Fast  [(f/2)]L
P
I
1
M
Nutrition  [(f/2)]L
P
I
1
M
Fix   RF  [(f/2)+1]M
P
I
1
P
Healthy Glow  [(f/2)]L
P
I
1
M
Treat   E/EF [(f/2)]Wound
P
I
1(5)
P
Ram Touch   RF  [(f/2)-1]M
P
I
1(2)
P
 

Edges and Flaws:

Gear:

 

Contacts:

  • Weaponsmith
  • Gang Members
  • Coporate Official (Yamatetsu)

    • Description: Standing about 5'9" tall, this slim, young Japane se gentleman seems relaxed in his surroundings. His black hair is short, about an inch long, and it stands up on the top, sides slicked back. A st udious quirk to his brow most of the time, the rest of his features are q uite average for a full-blooded Japanese male: fair skin, straight teeth, a somewhat regal nose, and he remains clean shaven at all times. His eye s are usually covered by a pair of dark sunglasses.

    History:

    Tachikara Nagasari was born 25 years ago right smack in the middle of Se attle, the first child of Hiroku and Keiko Nagasari. Great attention was bestowed upon the child not only because he was firstborn, but also becau se he was a firstborn male child in a rather traditional Japanese househo ld. His mother's parents still lived in Japan, while his father's parents were the second generation of Nagasari's to live on this side of the Pac ific Ocean. Unfortunately, both of Hiroku's parents were killed in a rath er tragic random bombing incident years before, as they dined in a questi onable neighborhood so Tachi never got to really know that side of his fa mily.

    Tachi was given everything his parents could possibly offer him, work ing with Hiroku's meager salary as a wage slave for Ares. So, while it wa s not an extravagant upbringing, it was quite sufficient by most standard s, and his first few years were filled with the expected happiness of a c arefree childhood.

    A bright and precocious child, he was reading Japanese and English at the age of three drudgery, especially as little children can be so unpredi ctable and a constant source of 'excitement'.

    Home life as a youngster was rather traditional as far as the Japanes e culture is concerned, the father being the very dominant figure and the mother/wife expected to be submissive and obeying. Tachi's mother fit th is stereotype perfectly... with one notable exception: she 'had the nerve ' to become pregnant again shortly after Tachi's fourth birthday. Her hus band was furious, and nearly disowned her. He accused her of getting preg nant on purpose, so that she could have another child to take care of. Ke iko was not very good at hiding her daily boredom since Tachi started goi ng off to school every morning. Fortunately, Hiroku's sense of honor and his love for his son kept him from leaving her. Nine months later, Tachi' s sister Kamiko was born after a long and painful labor which nearly kill ed Keiko.

    From the day Kamiko was brought home, Tachi loved her... as well as p itied her. He heard his parents arguing late at night, and they had never argued before Kamiko was conceived -- it's easy to put the clues togethe r, even that young. Of course, he didn't understand the REAL reason behin d the arguments just yet. After all, he had a playmate (when she got old enough) who expected nothing from him, unlike everyone else. He couldn't understand why she made their parents upset... she just did. Rather than blame her for something she could not have been responsible for, he looke d out for her and tried to protect her. It was at this point in his life that he began to feel different from his peers. Some things were just mor e important than learning multiplication tables or expressing your inner self via modelling >clay.

    The two of them played well together, as long as the parents weren't around. Because, as Kamiko grew older, she began to understand that she w as an unwanted child, an 'accident'. It was quite obvious that Tachi was treated better and was the favored child, and it didn't help much that Hi roku would occasionally come right out and SAY so, when enthralled in a f it of anger. It's not surprising, then, that Kamiko turned out to be a 'p roblem child' and ended up going out of her way to cause trouble in the h ousehold. If her parents didn't want her, well.. she didn't want them eit her. To give their mother credit, she really DID love Keiko just as much as she loved Tachi, but was sometimes afraid to show it. Hiroku was a for midable man, and could easily scare Keiko into submission, so both mother and daughter ended up suffering because of this, as did Tachi to a lesse r degree. He had to watch his mother get bullied by his father, and he ha d to watch Keiko be denied so many things that he was offered.

    Everything was fine between the siblings, however, so brother and sis ter played together, away from the parents, Tachi not understanding the d iscrepancy in the ways he and his sister were treated. Kamiko never reall y resented Tachi either, as most siblings would, simply because he was go od to her and would try to make her smile after she got yelled at. He was a good 'big brother.' Once every other summer for a few years, their par ents were able to save up enough money so that the children could visit t he grandparents in Japan for a few weeks. These times would end up being Tachi's only chance to experience any of his true heritage or his ancestr al homeland until he was well into young adulthood.

    A number of years pass, things not changing very much, except that Ka miko became more and more unruly and Tachi became more and more vocal in defending her. One afternoon, when Tachi was 8, the two children were run ning through the house, playing a game of tag. Kamiko was a fast little g irl, and it was all Tachi could do to keep any distance between them. Dis aster struck when they rounded a corner on the second floor of the apartm ent, and Tachi took a wrong step at the top of the stairs. Twisting his a nkle hard, he tumbled down the stairs and landed in a heap. Eight year ol ds are rather resilient, so he escaped with little more than a broken leg , though it shouldn't have even been that severe. Illumination fell upon the situation once he arrived at the hospital. It was discovered that Tac hi had a rare genetic condition that caused his bones to be somewhat less strong than other children his age. The family physician prescribed vita min injections, but no cure. It would be condition to stay with him for t he rest of his life.

    Unfortunately, Kamiko would be blamed for getting Tachi hurt, when in actuality it was his own clumsiness. Such would be home life for as long as they both lived there. A few months later, when Kamiko turned 5, she was sent off to boarding school, a classic case of an unwanted problem be ing tossed out of the parents' hair. Tachi was rather hurt and disappoint ed, as was Keiko, but felt a strange calm about the whole situation. Perh aps it was the best, and maybe Kamiko would be in an environment that wou ld better nurture her.

    Nothing very eventful happened for the next three years. Tachi grew a nd matured at a quicker pace than most children his age, and he was a stu dious and quiet lad. He enjoyed the artful pleasures, such as haiku and w estern poetry, as well as the more modern interpretations of computer ima ging and trideo anime. Of course, like any kid his age, he enjoyed monste r movies and playing in the mud with his few friends at the playground. H owever, those moments were quite a bit less prominent than the others, an d as a result, he was considered a bit 'geeky' and didn't have many frien ds outside of his classes.

    He regularly wrote letters back and forth to Kamiko while she was awa y, and occasionally sent her a few drawings. Most of the time he'd get a response, but sometimes the mail was intercepted by his father and immediately thrown in the trash. God only k nows why Hiroku would do such things. After a while, you just don't ask a nymore, you endure. Tachi became pretty crafty at being able to procure t he mail before his father got home from work, so he was able to carry on regular correspondence with his sister after about 8 months of trying. He 'd sit up late at night after bedtime to write and draw by flashlight, si mply so his father wouldn't catch him.

    At the age of 12, strange things began happening to Tachi. Fearing he might be 'goblinizing', he kept the strange sensations to himself, for f ear his parents would be devastated. However, it became harder and harder to hide until his parents finally did find out one night at dinner when Tachi literally screamed at something he said he saw in the kitchen which no one else could see . Lucki ly, fate would have it that he was not goblinizing, obviously, but was be coming magically active. His parents were thrilled that their little boy was not turning into a troll. Things were turned a bit upside for Tachi a nyway, as he was sent off to a family friend who lived on the other side of the city to learn how to properly use his newfound and blossoming abil ities.

    Tachi's six years with the Sensei would prove to be his most formativ e years. He learned how to weave magic into himself and throughout in the mystic hermetic tradition, studied philosophy, gained an appreciation fo r life, and learned self-discipline. It was a sequestered time during whi ch he had little contact with either Kamiko or his parents. So much for t he better: growth proceeds best when unimpeded. He worked his body, purif ying it and strengthening it, studying the ancient Japanese martial arts that centered around self-defence and pacifism , and learning more about the history o f the Japanese culture from just about every angle. It was a holistic edu cation, and formed the foundation for his adult life. Tachi took quite we ll to the cerebral, thought provoking issues, but didn't particularly car e for the physical part of things. His frustration with the katas and the self-defence training became readily apparent to the Sensei during one s ession in which Tachi did not properly concentrate before attempting to d o the well-known board breaking. Instead of breaking the wood, he broke h is arm. Again, it was something that wouldn't have happened if it were no t for the genetic abnormality in his bones.

    Rather than become upset with him, the Sensei let it stand as a lesso n. As Tachi healed over the next few weeks, he was instructed to meditate upon the incident until he realized that everything has its place, every action has its purpose. Nothing is ever inherently good or bad, for 'goo d' and 'bad' are subjective concepts in and of themselves. This would be the seed to form the current foundation of his spiritual beliefs.

    At the age of 18, Tachi left the tutelage of the Sensei, as the Sense i believed his studies to be complete in that area. He was sent off to le arn and experience on his own in a less sheltered environment. He managed to acquire job as a security mage at Mitsuhama, the same company his fat her worked for. Things went fairly well for Tachi and he was a model empl oyee for the most part. The only time he found himself falling off balanc e, after which he'd need to go home at the end of the day and meditate fo r a few hours was when he saw what he perceived to be a great injustice done. For instance, he w ould get rather upset to see a fellow employee, especially a fellow mage, accused by a paranoid executive of perhaps performing an unauthorized mi ndscan when the accused did no such thing. Of course, on the other hand, Tachi had no problem pocketing the credsticks of the few runners he and h is team would defeat as they tried to break into the corp. After all, he considered it to be hazard pay, and no one would miss it but the runners. Hell, they shouldn't have tried to break in anyway, right? It's all how you perceive what's just and what's not just... what's right and what's w rong... existentialism? In a round about way, yes.. either that or just a very definite idea of a personal code of honor and ethics.

    Things went fairly well for Tachi at Mitsuhama until he went up again st a rather well planned Shadowrun during his third year of employment. H e and his colleagues managed to thwart the little bout of corporate espio nage, but there was a price to pay: Tachi was blinded when a flash grenad e went off right in his face. He'd served Mitsuhama well for those three years, and he -was- injured on the job. Therefore, they agreed to foot th e bill for cybersurgery.

    He adapted phenomenally well to maneuvering the physical world withou t sight, but he had so many other things on his mind that he was quite te sty and indecisive about the cybersurgery for the most part. Shortly afte r he lost his vision, he got word that Kamiko had returned from boarding school and was promptly sent off to the very same Sensei that he had visi ted. However, she was sent because she had turned from a problem child in to a problem adolescent and she needed to learn discipline, something the boarding school in Japan had simply run out of patience for. Always havi ng been protective of his sister, he worried for her, and hoped that she would work with the Sensei, for no one can be taught who does not want to learn. As it was for him, Kamiko's time with the Sensei was a secluded o ne, and most communication was cut off aside from the occasional card or letter for a birthday or for Christmas.

    He finally convinced himself to stop worrying about her, and to stop being angry at his parents, and focus on HIS situation for the time being 2E He finally came to the conclusion to opt for the cybernetic replaceme nt of his eyes. In exchange, he had to agree to work for Mitsuhama for at least another three years, to repay the debt, which he did. Now, he -was - injured on the job, but a corp is -not- going to just hand out cyberwea r, even if the cause of the injury was defending the precious corp itself 2E They could have simply given him a cash settlement or offered to grow him new eyes from the DNA sample file they require from each employee. H owever, Mitsuhama had an ulterior motive. They wanted to use Tachi as a b it of a guinea pig.

    Tachi was damned good at his job, and he worked for relatively cheap, so he was the perfect candidate. They offered him the replacement eyes w ith the enhancements because they wanted to keep data on his performance. Mitsuhama was running its own little research program to try to figure o ut exactly why mages were less effective once the body was invaded with c yberwear. Once they found that out, they intended on taking it one step f urther and attempting to counteract that loss of 'edge.' The ultimate goa l was to have mages that were just as effective as hand to hand samurai w hile not losing any of their ability in magic and not having to be loaded down with fetishes and power foci. If you've got people who can do both, why HIRE both? Cut your personnel in half, toss the rest out into the st reet, and save yourself a couple of hundred thousand of nuyen per year.

    Tachi never found out about this facet of his employment, and the res ults of whatever useful data the corp gained, if any, aren't public. Tach i DID lose a bit of his edge, but over the next three years, managed to s et aside enough cash to acquire a small power foci. This is the ring he wears on hi s right hand. While it seemed to help a bit, Tachi's just never felt the same after losing his organic eyes, and it's something that still occasio nally bothers him to this day, especially since the grenade caused a bit of facial scarring as well. The scarring itself was repaired with simple plastic surgery during the cybereye implantation, but it changed his faci al features subtly enough so that someone who didn't know him very well o ver the years might have to pull a double take in order to recognize him. His cheekbones were slightly more prominent, and he had an unusual quirk to his right eyebrow, a quirk some women might consider roguish, but whi ch Tachi just considered to be an annoyance. Overall, if you didn't know what he looked like beforehand, you'd never notice anything was different 2E Nevertheless, he was not one to dwell on the negative nor to look a g ift horse in the mouth, as they say, so he eventually taught himself to a ccept himself as he was... for the most part.

    During his final year at Mitsuhama, he met a gaijin named Christina. She was a new hire and worked as a secretary at the corp, and he'd have t o pass her everyday as he checked in for his shift. Tachi was always poli te to the woman, and he'd always nod and smile at her whenever he came in , and she'd do the same. One night after work, he decided he'd finally tr y to break the ice after passing her every work day for the last year. He and some of the other mages in his task group would go out for beers eve ry Friday night, and one particular Friday night, he decided to ask her t o join them. Much to his surprise, she accepted, and things progressed sm oothly from there. He liked her smile and her eyes, and that funny little way she had of quirking a grin whenever he told a particularly bad joke. She enjoyed his offbeat sense of humor whenever it decided to show up, a s well as the seeming sense of honor and discipline he seemed to tackle h is job with each day. They hit it off fairly well and began dating regula rly.

    Things wouldn't go too smoothly for long. About 6 months after he and Christina started dating, Tachi's mother died. He wasn't as upset as one might expect. Oh, he did love his mother, but she lived a relatively lon g life compared to many other people, and besides, this way she was relea sed from his father. No longer could Hiroku push her around. Interestingl y enough, he noticed Kamiko at the funeral... but Kamiko did not notice h im. She arrived in a limousine, stood far back from the rest of the crowd , and seemed to have quite the different aura about her. He assumed she c ould not pick him out of the crowd because of the distance, but he could easily recognize her from his vantage point because of the optical magnif ication enhancement in his cybereyes. Before he had a chance to approach her and ask why she had not contacted him to tell him she was back, she e ntered the limo and it sped off. He was barely able to catch the license plate number. Curiosity piqued, since he had not spoken to her for a few years, he called on a few of his contacts at the corp and was finally abl e to track her down. Much to Tachi's surprise, he discovered she was work ing for the Yakuza. Disturbed and intrigued at the same time by her new i mage and attitude, not to mention the... interesting... aura he got when he assensed her... he decided to approach the Yakuza anonymously, in the hopes of joining. Not that he necessarily agrees with the Yak's methods, but it seemed the best way to experience something new, receive a paychec k with which to live on, and also protect and keep an eye on his younger sister, perhaps trying to assist her in regaining her balance, which he p erceived her to have lost. It would be a shame for all of the Sensei's tr aining to go to waste. Maybe she just needs a little help.

    This did -not- sit well with Christina. Not only did he just up and l eave her side at the funeral after the services were over so he could go chase the limo, but he's just been damned obsessed about Kamiko. Not only that, but he's been going out at night and he won't tell her where he's going. Needless to say, Tachi's marriage proposal fe ll on deaf ears and it was through a haze of tears that Christina decided she needed to say good-bye to Tachi, at least on a personal level. If he couldn't understand why she was upset, then he really had a problem, she felt, and it was a problem she couldn't help him with. In light of this, when his 'contract' with Mitsuhama was due to end in a month or so, he d ecided not to follow up on an option they offered him and instead decided to take his leave. Not only would it be awkward to have to see Christina every day, but he needed to concentrate his time in other areas now, and working for both Mitsuhama -and- the Yakuza could prove hazardous to one 's health.

    Tachi's hoping Kamiko doesn't recognize him right away, simply becaus e it would be easier for him to gather more information that way. They've not seen each other for at least four years, and he does look a bit diff erent from the last photographs they exchanged. His hair is different, hi s clothes are different, his face is slightly different.. heck, even his eye color is different. Kamiko's perceptive, though, and his anonymity wo n't last long, that's for sure. It's unknown exactly what drives Tachi to think that he must protect Kamiko. Maybe he's trying to fill in where hi s parents failed. At any rate, he's assumed the name Takahashi Hogosha, s treetname Talon.