Kazuyo Nakadai

Kazuyo Nakadai was an agent of the Anti-Grannies, an organization of Japanese citizens that felt oppressed by their lack of control over their lives and believed that Japan's fate belonged to its people and not a soulless machine, who Grandmother, the freewill caretaker of Japan, inadvertingly chose to marry Tohru Nakadai, the heir to the mantle of Rai.
=Warrior Maiden=
On the evening of March 22nd 4001 on Okazaki Island, Kazuyo Nakadai overheard her husband, Tohru tell their newborn son, Takashi Nakadai, that they would go fishing soon and told him that she thought that their son was too young for that. When Tohru stated an eagerness for his son to have the childhood he never did, Kazuyo expressed her hatred for Grandmother, who raised him from the time he was Takashi’s age. Though Tohru urged her not to say that, and told her that Grandmother meant well and that she loved their people, who she sheltered and cared for, Kazuyo insisted that they should take care of themselves like them.
That night, Tohru returned home after Grandmother transformed him into her Rai, and as he entered the room, Kazuyo told him that when she awoke and found him gone she suspected that Grandmother had finally won. Though Tohru apologized, he said that he did not have a choice and reminded Kazuyo that she accepted that he was the heir of Rai, but then she told him that she accepted his birthright because she loved him and said that she did not want her baby raised in isolation doing nothing but train and listen to Grandmother’s lies.
When Tohru tried to explain why he was there, Kazuyo refused to listen and then summoned a group of Vi–Robs, and as they surrounded him, she begged him with a heavy heart to put the baby down so they would not kill him, but he refused.
After Tohru destroyed the Vi–Robs, he asked Kazuyo when the Anti-Grannies won her over and she told him that she had been one of them since before they met, which showed that Grandmother made a mistake when she selected her. Though Tohru agreed to the possibility that Grandmother was fallible, he insisted that she did a lot for their people and only asked in return for one child every generation that would serve as a single guardian to protect the host body that fifty billion people lived in. As Tohru left with Takashi, Kazuyo aimed a gun at him and said that their people existed as kept pets lulled into complacency, and that it was better for Takashi to die than serve Grandmother, but before she could fire, Tohru destroyed the gun.
Days later, after Shigeru Tsuda, the Anti-Grannies’ leader, deployed a carcino–pod that destroyed Grandmother’s intellect, Kazuyo stared at the host body from the Anti–Grannies’ headquarters on Shichito Island and lamented the death of the fifty billion citizens who would suffocate inside, trapped in the dark hollows of her corpse. Worried for her baby’s safety, Kazuyo, who blamed Tohru for Takashi being inside Grandmother, inferred that Chein-Lung, the arms dealer that sold them the weapon, had tricked them, and, despite the other Anti-Grannies’ assurances that the weapon had malfunctioned, she left to go kill him.
As Chein–Lung prepared for the Anti-Grannies to arrive to their chambers and his cohort, Ch’in, donned an X-O Commando Armor with which he could secure the sector by the time their fleet made earthfall, Kazuyo entered the room and ordered them to drop their weapons, but then Ch’in knocked her out with a blast.
Hours later, aboard a ship two hundred miles above the sea of Japan, Chein–Lung worried that they were in trouble after they failed to ensure that Grandmother was dead before they signaled the armada, and wondered if they would be thrown in with the breeders. Since he refused to mate with the egg layers, Ch’in planned to use the armor kill Grandmother to redeem them as heroes. As Ch’in brandished a ring on his finger, he proclaimed that they would have to kill him to take the armor’s power from him. Ravenous at the thought of a kill, Ch’in turned to Kazuyo to eat her, but she broke free and killed him with a broken piece of metal. After Kazuyo took the ring, she used the armor to tear a hole on the ship, which exploded as she escaped.
When Kazuyo flew back toward the Earth, she expressed her amazement at her rapport with the armor, which responded to everything she said, thought, or wished like if it were a part of her as much as her arms and legs, and was aware that she wanted to find her baby. As Kazuyo felt the armor search for Takashi using senses she could not comprehend but trusted more than her own eyes, she arrived at Grandmother’s amputated limb and swam through flooded corridors that, with each twist and turn, took her closer to Takashi, who, to her dismay, she found floating above his crib. As she held Takashi above the water, Kazuyo administered CPR.
While Tohru and Magnus repealed an alien boarding party in the Skull Dome, and 1A and Grandmother destroyed the aliens’ ships with their thermonuclear plasma gun, Kazuyo returned to Japan shortly after an alien ship destroyed its main mouth gun and left Grandmother with only her gun follicles to fight on.
After an armored alien knocked out Magnus and left Tohru on his own to face a thousand foot soldiers, Kazuyo saved his life. Elsewhere, Phil Seleski, the legendary hero known as Solar, converted the energy in the conduits of the gun into plasma and vaporized half the fleet, then he destroyed himself and the remaining ships in a supernova that Grandmother said signaled the passing of an age.
When Kazuyo removed her helmet, Tohru believed that she would try to kill Grandmother, but she told him that she had seen enough fighting for a day and then she opened her carapace to reveal that she was carrying Takashi, who she told Tohru that he found where he abandoned him, inside her. At a loss, Tohru tried to apologize, but Kazuyo warned him never to try to take Takashi from her again.
Days later, Grand One, the rechristened Grandmother, addressed her citizens and told them that the damage to the host body prevented them from returning to Earth, while the loss of her industrial limb limited her ability to rebuild. After she stabilized Japan in orbit and provided gravity simulation and auto systems for all basic needs, Grand One bowed to the growing movement to reassert human control over human affairs and left the people to choose whether to remain there or rebuild on Earth, the end of an age that made Kazuyo cry.
=Humanist Enforcer=
After Grandmother leaves Japan isolated and self–contained in orbit over the Earth following an alien invasion, the Anti-Grannies take over the orbiting nation and form a Humanists citizen council, and, armed with an X-O Commando Armor, Kazuyo becomes their enforcer.
==The Colossus of Japan==
When the Healers Restoration Underground, a group that believed that Tohru Nakadai had allowed Grandmother to leave and helped put Shinji Tanaka and the Humanists in power attacked the Skull Dome and threatened to shut down power and atmosphere across entire sectors of Japan, Kazuyo donned her armor and led the Humanists soldiers against them.
After Kazuyo ordered her men to take the prisoners to the interrogation level and search for those who escaped, she noticed that a piece of the brain stem had been deliberately removed and ordered Wasabe to scan all existing schematics to find out what the Healers took. When Tohru commended Kazuyo on her embracement of her new role, she asked him what made him choose their side and he replied that his trust was to protect their people, but no one told which one, to which she remarked that he truly helped neither and nothing had changed, but then he told her that she had and left.
That day, in the new government palace in the Tokyo enclosure, Councilor Isao Seko told President Shinji Tanaka and Kazuyo that their informant network had learned the whereabouts of the module and determined that it powered a weapon that restoration factions were piecing together at the auxiliary metals recycling center. Upset, as her officers were unable to find any mention of the item in the official records, Kazuyo sarcastically applauded Seko, who told her that the military was not always the best choice for intelligence operations.
When Seko conveyed to Shinji the council’s suggestion that they convince Tohru to help them eliminate the danger to solidify the impression in the people’s minds that he was their ally, he refused out of worry that he would sabotage the mission. When Shinji expressed concern that he would loose the people’s support, Kazuyo and Seko reminded him that without the strength of the council he would loose his tenuous hold on power. After Shinji concurred with them, he asked Kazuyo to speak with Tohru, as she had the greatest chance of success, and prayed that their success came swiftly for all their sakes.
That day, Kazuyo visited Takashi in the Happy Cloud executive child care facility in section Y, and when she saw Tohru holding their son, she told him that Takashi missed him and, that sometimes, she did as well.
When Tohru asked Kazuyo why she removed his name from the authorization list and sought to keep him from their son, she told him that some considered him an unstable influence and that she had to consider her position. When Tohru accused her of being an assassin, Kazuyo told him that she did not set out to be a killer, but that she did what she had to and so should him. When Kazuyo told Tohru that they were going to raid a Healer stronghold and that with his help they could bolster Tanaka’s control and bring stability to their nation, he reiterated his inability to pick a side, but then she said that Japan was no longer Grandmother’s world and that to save it hard choices had to be made. After Kazuyo reminded Tohru that she had made her choice and told him that it was time he made his, she left.
After the Humanists evacuated all the loyalists workers in the recycling center, Kazuyo told them that Tohru would not fight with them and suggested that they pray he would not fight against them. As they breached a refining chamber where the Healers were, Kazuyo ordered her men to destroy a scaffold that she assumed contained the weapon before the Healers could organize a resistance, but then a squadron of defense robots opened fire on them. Suddenly, Tohru disabled a defense robot before it fired on Kazuyo, who then ordered her troops to concentrate on the humans while she handled the robots.
Suddenly, a colossus broke free of the scaffold and a Healer shouted that they had appropriated pieces of the drones that Tohru dismembered and used them to construct Grandmother’s ultimate protector to destroy Tanaka’s forces and claimed that they used the circuitry stolen from her brain stem to add a deflection field that could resist even Tohru’s blows. When the drone tried to smash Tohru, Kazuyo reminded him that Healer bot–builders could do anything and urged him to fight or else it would kill him. After the drone stepped on a Humanist soldier and killed him, Tohru shattered the bridge under its feet and it fell into the molten metal.
While the Humanists retrieved the drone, a general told Kazuyo that he doubted that they would find the module, and that melting operations would be idle until they rebuilt the meltdown arc. As Kazuyo said that at least they won the battle, Tohru pondered why Grandmother needed a deflection shield when she could have turned anything in the country to her defense and Kazuyo told him that she held many secrets, even from him. After Kazuyo told Tohru to accept the benefits that their alliance brought him and that Takashi would enjoy seeing him, he asked her if only he would enjoy seeing him and she told him to take one conquest at a time.
==The Neopium Dens==
When Kazuyo responded to a disturbance that she thought could be the Healers, whose attacks were on the rise, she led a group of soldiers into a Neopium den and found Tohru looming over four broken Ninjatrons. After Kazuyo chastised Tohru for carrying out an unsanctioned raid when he knew that independent action could weaken Tanaka’s position, which he joined the Humanists to strengthen, he walked away in a huff and she told him that for his choice to side with them to matter he had to work with them.
That day, in the new government palace, Councilor Seko suggested that they put Tohru on a leash, but President Tanaka dismissed his sarcasm and said that Tohru would need time to shed his independent ways. When Seko suggested that, were it not for Tohru’s interference, the Neopium, a narcotic that brought pleasure to those who took it, and, with prolonged exposure, swayed them to their cause, could work for them, Kazuyo coldly reminded him that the drug was illegal.
As Seko mockingly asked Tanaka if he would listen to Kazuyo unsurprisingly defend her husband or his own council, Tanaka said that he would listen to whoever spoke wisely and then dismissed the councilors.
Moments later, while they stood on a balcony that overlooked the Tokyo enclosure, Tanaka confessed to Kazuyo that sometimes he envied the people their complacency, as sheep always did while the shepherd bearded the weight, and asked her how she was accepting things. After she assured Tanaka that she was not a ewe, Kazuyo sorrowfully told him that she knew that the past was history and that the present was what mattered, while what might have been was not important.
After a scrambled info–cast informed them that a primary Neopium production facility was found Kazuyo contacted the Rai Globe from the war room in the new government palace and learned that Tohru had already left. Certain that Tohru’s hatred for Neopium overrode his caution, Kazuyo donned her armor to go help him, but President Tanaka ordered her to stay because she was too valuable for the party and told her that, though he knew how difficult it was for her, they would wait.
After spy–eye transmissions indicated that fighting had broken out in the Satori commerce spire and that it seemed that Tohru was in trouble, Kazuyo went to help him much to Tanaka’s dismay. As Kazuyo flew away, Seko told Tanaka that two leashes were required.
When Kazuyo arrived, she saw as Icespike, the facility’s gatekeeper, rushed to stab Tohru with two spikes that sprung from his armor and knocked him off balance with a blast. As Kazuyo landed next to Tohru, she reprimanded him, but when she noticed that he was injured, she took pity on him. Suddenly, Icespike shot Kazuyo with a dart spray that disrupted her concentration and knocked her off her feet.
When Icespike cornered Kazuyo and was about to deliver a killing blow with his staff, Tohru snuck up from behind him and kicked him across the head and sent him reeling through a glass billboard. As Humanist soldiers rushed him, Icespike stole a vascar and fled.
While the people and soldiers gathered around them, Tohru said that they made a good team and Kazuyo told him that they would be a better one if he would follow orders, then she corrected herself and told him that at least he achieved his goal and the Neopium trade was in shambles. When Kazuyo asked Tohru how it felt to be a hero, a citizen asked why they took away Neopium, which did not hurt anyone and was a momentary escape from an ever–changing world that was all some of them had, and he told her that he did not know.
==The Humanist And The Healer==
During a council meeting, Councilor Seko demanded that they decommission Kazuyo and seize her armor after she disobeyed orders that put their victory in danger to assist Tohru, whose loyalty he doubted, but to his dismay, Tanaka just reprimanded her and curtailed her privileges because she was too important to loose as an ally, and refused to dismiss Tohru’s allegiance.
After the meeting adjourned, Shinji told Kazuyo that, as a history scholar, the past told him that it would be a lot easier if Seko were dead, and when she asked him if he was going to have him assassinated, he replied that he just meant that it would be easier.
While Tohru stood over a railing in the balcony, Kazuyo came out and told him that it was unlike him to turn his back on his problems and that he used to care. When Tohru asked Kazuyo when the last time that she visited their son was, she ruefully told him that the Humanists party relied on her and that, while she knew that Takashi needed her, it was difficult to go see him.
While he was sympathetic, Tohru told Kazuyo that he wanted her to understand that he had made choices as well that were no easier to make than hers. In the hope that he could find comfort among his people, some of whom did not hate him yet, Tohru walked away and left Kazuyo standing alone in the balcony.
That evening, while Kazuyo waited for the care takers of the child-care facility to bring Takashi out to her, she received an alert of an emergency in the desalinization center in the third quadrant and had to leave, but she promised to return. As Kazuyo rushed out of the facility and used her control ring to summon her armor so that it would meet her there, a vascab conductor offered to take her there and she got inside the vehicle, unaware that the driver was Makiko Minashi, the Healer's leader.
As the vascab flew over the city, Makiko asked Kazuyo whether she felt vulnerable without her armor given that she had enemies and Kazuyo told her that she could take care of herself. Suddenly, Makiko attacked Kazuyo with her batons and, in the struggle that ensued, Kazuyo kicked her into the cab’s control console.
After the cab crashed into a museum, Kazuyo crawled out of the wreck and ordered a guard to arrest Makiko, who swiftly killed him. As Makiko chased Kazuyo, she toppled a statue over her and ordered her armor to come find her. As Makiko prepared to deliver a killing blow, the X–O Commando armor broke through the wall and wrapped itself around Kazuyo while Makiko escaped.
When Kazuyo went after Makiko, an officer told her that she stole his pursuit pod, which she then saw swing behind a building. After Kazuyo shot the pod down with an energy blast, she searched the wreck for Makiko but found no trace of her. Realizing that Makiko had escaped, Kazuyo departed for the desalinization center.
When Tohru arrived at the seawater storage facility, Kazuyo told him that before they drove off the Healers they caused massive damage that would take weeks to repair and contaminated the water supply in the sector, which upset the citizens, who accused Tohru of failing to guard them while Tanaka’s troops at least tried.
==Genocide==
When Kazuyo Nakadai and Tohru Nakadai visited their son, Takashi Nakadai, in the Happy Cloud executive child care facility in section Y, Tohru held him in his arms and pointed at the Earth as it hung outside a panoramic window and told him that that was where he was born. When Kazuyo asked Tohru if he thought that Takashi would ever return there, he told her that shuttles still traveled between Japan and Earth, but that there was much that none of them could ever return to.
While Tohru mused that when they were a family on Okazaki Island he decided to be the last Rai even before he inherited the powers to spare their son, he recalled how Grandmother departed to space and mourned that the struggle between the Humanists and the Healers could succeed where the alien invaders failed. When Kazuyo told Tohru that the war had not torn apart their family, he reminded her that while they were on Earth she worried that his obligations would prevent him from being there for Takashi, and said that since her duties as President Tanaka’s right hand kept her from the nursery, perhaps she should be Rai instead.
While Kazuyo and Tohru discussed the future of their family, she received a priority alert that requested her to report to the barracks, and, hopeful that it was the breakthrough they had been hoping for on the Healers’ attack plan, she dashed off and donned her armor. Though Tohru wanted to accompany her, Kazuyo told him that he had become the focus of too much discontent, and that while President Tanaka valued his loyalty, he would best serve his position and the Humanists’ cause if he distanced himself from both of them.
When Kazuyo arrived to access hangar T–27 where the Humanists forces had located the Healers, Captain Omura informed her that the exits were covered and their weapons were fully charged, then he contacted the Tiger Squads, their elite force, which were on the surface setting up explosives to breach the room.
After the charges went off and opened a hole into the hangar, Kazuyo went after Wasabe while the Squads established a sniper wedge to prevent the Healers from passing through the atmosphere shields as they had. Unexpectedly, Makiko grabbed Kazuyo using a Healer Battlesuit that their scientists devised after they studied stolen alien components and kept her away from him. Though the Battlesuit was not as sophisticated as Kazuyo’s armor, it resisted a Tiger Squads’ weaponry while Makiko blasted him with its lasers.
When Tohru entered the hangar, Makiko, in her desperation, ordered Koji Yama, a Healer scientist, to initiate the rocket’s launch and the discharge from the engines instantly killed many Healers. When Makiko tried to burn Kazuyo in the engine fire, Kazuyo shot Tohru in the back to get his attention and when he released a burst of energy into the Battlesuit to help Kazuyo escape, the influx caused Makiko to fire a blast that damaged the take-off ramp and placed the rocket in a trajectory against the outer hull.
When Koji said that in their rush they had not installed an emergency shutdown circuit, Tohru damned him and then attempted to stop the rocket himself, but the exhaust blast kept him away and, despite his attempt to tear it apart with an energy spear, the rocket blasted off and tore through the hull. Almost instantaneously, the vacuum sucked thousands of Japanese citizens into the void of space.
Three days later, in the new government palace, a bewildered Shinji told Tohru that, even though they knew that the rocket was accidentally deflected, somehow the public blamed him, which, ironically, united them in their focused desire to see him die. Though Shinji offered to stand beside him, Tohru said that if he did that would only destroy any hope he had of leading the people’s front, and told him that he had a chance to bring peace to their land, just not with Rai at his side.
After he reiterated that Grandmother charged him with protecting the people, Tohru noted that the best way to achieve that was to allow them to live together in perfect harmony and offered to exile himself from Japan.
==The Departed==
One hour before Tohru Nakadai was due to leave Japan forever, a group of disgruntled citizens ambushed him and his escort, Kazuyo Nakadai, with air-to-air missiles. Though Kazuyo ordered the shuttle’s pilot to continue on to the bay while she covered them, Tohru had him take them lower so he could jump.
As Kazuyo swooped down into the crowd and swatted them aside, she assumed that they were a pocket of the restoration underground, but a woman in the group denied that they were Healers and said that they just wanted to punish Tohru, who she called a monster. After the police dragged the citizens off Tohru, who let them to beat him up instead of fight them, and took them away, Kazuyo inferred that they had found a hidden cache of rebel weapons and told him that they should leave.
When Kazuyo and Tohru arrived in the transport bay, a day care provider from the Happy Cloud facility gave Takashi over to Kazuyo, who held him close to her and commented that he could not understand the situation. When Tohru noted that, ever since their estrangement after Japan’s ascension, when he no longer had both parents, Takashi had become resilient, Kazuyo said that he would now be apart from one of them by thousands of miles and handed him over to Tohru with the promise that she would visit him whenever she could. As Tohru held his son in his arms, he commended Kazuyo for her courage and restraint.
As Kazuyo apologized for not having been a worthy parent and for having allowed her break up of the Healer rebellion to take away Takashi’s time, she expressed concern over how long the recovery of Japan would last, President Shinji Takashi said that, however long it was, it would be shorter thanks to Tohru’s great sacrifice. Saddened, Shinji told Tohru that exile was a punishment few would accept, let alone bring upon themselves, but, as he bowed down in respect, Tohru noted that hatred for him had brought their people together, and told Shinji that, when he was gone, he could use that union to make Japan whole. As he bowed back, Shinji told Tohru that someday he would be hailed as the hero that he was.
Before Tohru boarded his shuttle, he, Kazuyo, and Takashi shared one, final, embrace.
While Shinji and Kazuyo watched as Tohru’s shuttle departed, Shinji told her that he was a noble man, and that nobility was often the first causality of war, and she replied that, at least, his war was over.
Later, in Kazuyo’s quarters in the T. Mifune military barracks adjacent to the new government palace, Kazuyo stared at a photograph of Tohru taken before Grandmother transformed him into Rai, when, then, Shinji called her on the video phone. Once the computer authenticated Shinji’s voice, Kazuyo opened the video-link and spoke with Shinji, who asked her to go see him in his quarters without her armor because he wanted to talk to her as a woman and not a soldier. Confused, Kazuyo closed the feed and faced her armor.
When Kazuyo entered the new government palace garbed in her armor, she attempted to devise a credible excuse for why she brought it with her, but when she was unable to do it, she removed it and left it floating in the office lounge. When Kazuyo reached the President’s chambers, she was confused to see three councilors who told her that Shinji asked to see as well were waiting outside for him. Just then, the door to Shinji’s office opened and Isao invited Kazuyo to go in.
Soon as Kazuyo entered the darkened room, four soldiers that were loyal to Isao ambushed her and severed her hand that held her armor’s control ring to prevent her from calling it. Startled, Kazuyo believed that Shinji betrayed her, but then Isao revealed that he had used a holographic manipulation to summon her there and that he had killed Shinji, whose corpse rested on his chair.
When the councilors chastised Isao for killing Shinji, he told them that now that the people had united it was the best time to seize power. When the councilors asked him why the people would follow him, Isao told them that they would tell them that Kazuyo assassinated Shinji, and when he executed her the people’s loyalty would be his. Enraged, Kazuyo told Isao that Tohru would kill him, but then Isao revealed that his tech team had made certain modifications in the diplomatic shuttle that ensured that Tohru would never reach Earth.
Shortly, Isao’s soldiers tossed Kazuyo inside a cell in the maximum security detention block to await her execution the next morning. Enraged, Kazuyo cursed at the guards, when then Makiko Minashi, the leader of the Healers Restoration Underground and her fellow prisoner, called her attention and threatened to kill her.
=Unity=
When Erica Pierce, the God–like entity called Mothergod, tries to achieve Unity, a convergence of all the timelines, the Geomancers of two eras gather the heroes of Earth to stop her in one final decisive battle for all eternity in the Lost Land, a place outside time and reality.
==The Fall of Japan==
After Makiko Minashi enthusiastically told her that she had dreamt of slaying her for shattering her Anti–Humanists revolt, Kazuyo Nakadai showed her the prosthesis that she wore on her arm where her hand used to be and told her that she expected her to share with her hatred for Isao Seko, who mutilated her and betrayed her restoration underground. When Kazuyo told Makiko that she could kill her at any time, but that if they worked together they might see Seko dead first, Makiko sat down and asked her to elaborate on her plan.
Meanwhile, in the Lost Land, a place outside time and reality, the God-like entity called Erica Pierce watched from the Rainbow Tower as Tohru Nakadai, Magnus, and Gilad Anni-Padda entered her domain to stop her from achieving Unity, a convergence of all timelines, and feared that Tohru’s power posed the greater hazard to her plans.
In a bid to turn Tohru away, Erica contacted him as a hologram projected through a Bionisaur and offered him a chance to save his world. After she conjured an image of Japan as it appeared in orbit over the Earth, Erica told Tohru that she was projecting an energy matrix wavelength into his timeline that increased gravitational fields, and then she pushed Japan from orbit to prove her intention.
As Japan dropped Earthward, the suspension support arms deployed automatically throughout the host body to keep the citizens safe.
After Erica gave Tohru a rod that would instantly transport him to Japan and negate the mag–grav field once he arrived, she melted the entrance he used to reach the Lost Land so that, once he left, he could never return. Stuck between Erica’s threat to fill the sky with the blood of millions, and Gilad and Magnus’ rationalization that she wanted him gone because she feared him and their plea that he weigh the millions of lives against the billions that would die if they lost, Tohru shattered the rod, and, in retaliation, Erica destroyed Japan.
As Japan experienced an increased gravity surge that completely decayed its orbit and made an impact with Earth imminent, the technicians in the headland’s unified operations control center initiated dragon mode in an effort to break their fall, even though its missing limb prevented them from safely making planet-fall.
In what felt like an eternity, Japan fell from the sky and crashed into the Indian Ocean, killing millions of people upon impact.
==The Walking Dead==
Following the fall of Japan on the edge of the Indian Ocean, Kazuyo Nakadai dug herself up from the ruins of what once was her jail cell, and, as she wandered around the detention block, she recalled that when Japan slipped from orbit and plummeted towards the Earth they heard the emergency announcement in the detention cells. As Kazuyo wondered how and why it happened, she stepped out from behind a column and was horrified to witness the destruction that surrounded her. Just then, Makiko Minashi came out from behind Kazuyo, and, together, they went to go see what was left of Japan.
As they made their way through the streets of Japan, and gazed at the destruction and the injured, Makiko noted that it seemed like Grandmother’s emergency systems deployed automatically, and commented that she doubted that more than twenty or thirty million people had died. Sarcastically, Makiko told Kazuyo that it was too bad her Humanists kept her rebels from reestablishing complete technological control, because if they had then the casualties would have been much lower. When a grieving citizen who lost his mother during the crash told them that they were on Earth, Kazuyo said that that was where Tohru was going before Isao Seko killed him, which prompted Makiko to ask if the Rai was dead.
After Kazuyo told Makiko that she forgot she had been behind bars longer than her, she told her that her husband had been exiled to Earth but did not know that Isao, who she called a power–hungry weasel, had rigged his shuttle to veer into infinite space instead. Enraged, Kazuyo said that their son, Takashi Nakadai, was with Tohru, and that she had to know if Isao had survived so she could kill him, but that she needed her living armor and the control ring on her severed hand that Isao kept as a trophy.
Preoccupied, Makiko warned Kazuyo that if Isao lived he would protect that armor at all cost, and that it was his best bet to regain power once stability had been re-established. Worried that getting to Isao alone and unarmed could be impossible, Makiko wished Kazuyo good luck and then walked away from her. As Makiko left, Kazuyo mused that she had as much reason to hate Isao after he betrayed her rebellion as she did, but figured that she must hate her even more.
Moments later, a flier crashed in the palace plaza. As Kazuyo stepped out from inside the flier, a group of tattered palace guards opened fire on her and rushed her. Though Kazuyo initially gave the guards a good fight, they soon got the best of her and pushed her on her knees. As the guards surrounded Kazuyo, she bravely told them to kill her fast because they would not get a second chance, when, unexpectedly, Makiko arrived on the scene with Koji Yama and a squad of Ninjatrons that swiftly defeated the soldiers.
After Kazuyo killed a guard with another’s pistol, she told Makiko that she thought that she was alone, but Makiko told her that, after she figured that two one-armed wonders would not have a chance, she let her serve as bait while she made her way to the hidden bunkers where the rebellion hid its Ninjatrons. Certain that now that they were not alone they would triumph, Makiko told Kazuyo that they should go see to it that Isao Seko experienced a great deal of pain.
Back inside the palace, a councilor informed Isao that their defenses had fallen, and he had just heard that invaders entered the palace proper, while another one suggested that he had to leave. Though he was upset, Isao agreed to leave, but ordered the councilors to secure the armor in the escape craft, because if he could not have his prize, neither would the invaders.
Six minutes later, Kazuyo and the others breached Isao’s office just after he fled in a governmental flier, and though the Ninjatrons tried to shut him down, he avoided their blasts and escaped. When Kazuyo discovered he armor was gone, Koji used an alien pulse-scan the underground possessed and helped her find the control ring amid the ruins. When Kazuyo found her hand with the control ring still on it, she summoned the armor to her, and when it responded to her command, it tore a hole through Isao’s vessel that forced him to crash.
As the commando armor flew into the office and wrapped itself around Kazuyo, she said that she missed it, then, when the armor created a surrogate hand for her, she proclaimed that they were truly whole. Concerned that Kazuyo was as determined that her Humanists should rule as she was that her techno-rebellion should take over, Makiko asked her if, when the final sword was drawn, she would kill Isao, who was their strongest leader and their best hope of holding power once the chaos passed, but Kazuyo said nothing and left.
When Kazuyo found Isao in the remnants of the Ojima necropolis standing on the compacted ash–chips of Japan’s dead, he sarcastically asked her if she had come to rescue him and then shot her with a pistol which beam harmlessly bounced off her armor. Enraged, Kazuyo told Isao that he would pay for taking her husband and child, but then Icespike shouted that she would have to collect from him first.
When Kazuyo shouted Icespike’s name, he urged her to scream it because it would soon be on the lips of the world as the man who killed their new emperor’s most powerful enemy. When Icespike shot her with a speedspike from his gauntlets, she rose off the ground into the air to avoid it, but, to her surprise, he had made modifications to his armor’s offensive mode and followed her. As Icespike shot her with a barrage, Kazuyo mused that the last time he tried to make a notch in his reputation she had Tohru with her, while now she had nothing but her rage and shot him with an energy blast that caused him to crash. As Kazuyo swooped down, Icespike hit her with a lance while Isao shot an ash compactor that released a plume of pressurized gases that blinded her long enough for Icespike to tackle her.
While Icespike sprayed Kazuyo with a barrage of ice darts, her armor jammed his spray nozzles and she told him that people would sing for centuries of his failure as they exploded and burnt his arms.
As Kazuyo marched towards Isao, he sarcastically asked her if she felt better and told her that, despite her feelings, she knew that he was a good leader and that he could draw their people together through the trying days ahead, just like she knew that, only through him, could the Humanist movement and its ideals survive. Crestfallen, Kazuyo told Isao that everything he said was true, but then she told him that she had served Japan long enough and it was time to serve justice and blasted his head with a discharge from her armor.
After Kazuyo killed Isao, Makiko, Koji, and the Ninjatrons arrived in a shuttle and Makiko told Kazuyo that she was impressed and a little surprised she killed him because he was the best chance for Humanist rule. As Makiko pulled out a weapon that she intended to shoot Kazuyo with, Rentaro Nakadai, Kazuyo’s father in law, rushed towards them and said that their fight was stupid given their situation. When Kazuyo told Rentaro to stay away and that she had nothing to live for, Rentaro signaled Rokland Tate, the Geomancer, who walked up to her with her son, Takashi Nakadai.
Elated to see Takashi, Kazuyo believed that Isao was wrong when he said that he killed him and Tohru, but, to her dismay, Rokkie told her that Tohru gave his life in a struggle to save existence, and because of him the battle was won and he would he honored forever.
Surrounded by the Ninjatrons and with Koji at her side, Makiko told Kazuyo to leave Japan with her family and memories and keep both alive. With Takashi in her arms, Kazuyo said that there had been enough fighting, and told Makiko that, just like Japan would endure, so would they. As Kazuyo walked into the sunset with Takashi and Rentaro, she said that it was time to let the healing begin.
Category: Rai
Category: Characters