R. "The Anger" Kimura

## **Self Introduction: Ren Kimura, "The Anger"**

Good evening to listeners in Japan and myself, and good morning to listeners in America.  I am Ren Kimura, but most thugs, other assassins, criminal organizations, news outlets, acquaintences, stealth artists, and believers of urban legends would know me as The Anger.  People seem to think I'm work for hire but I pursue upon my own interests for what intrigues me.  People also seem confused as to how exactly I earn money to pay for what I want, well, it's easy for me and I'll explain that as I go.  I've made many mistakes, but I can't go back.

I was born on November 23rd, 2061 in Tokyo, Japan to a kindhearted mother and an admirably astounding father.  I always looked up to him, he meant everything in terms of a hero to me.  I remember being told how surprised my parents were to know I was a father's kind of kid, and I always attracted the attention of others.  I imagine as a toddler it was the "oh you're such a cute little girl, you've got an adorable smile" kind of talk.  As I got into school, it was more like "you look lonely, I want to be your friend" bickering.  I didn't like it, I was a shy kid.  Every peer of mine wanted to know what Tokyo was like; my family and I moved to Yokohama shortly after I was born.  I never knew why.  I never gave anyone answers, and I never said anything to anyone.  If the teacher called on me, I always blushed and I could never bring myself to answer the question before someone interrupted me.  At first, my peers would shrug it off.  When we all started to grow up a little, my peers would say nasty things about me as an excuse to why I couldn't say anything.

My parents never liked that I couldn't speak up in class.  My mom tried to encourage me, and my dad would give me advice.  I remember him telling me, "The teacher is who you're talking to, and they won't judge you if you get the answer wrong.  Ignore all the other kids and their lies.  They don't know how great of a kid you really are."  I recall telling him that they won't stop bullying me, I never knew what came of that or what my dad did anyways.  Although things did get worse, but I always knew my dad could help if I was having trouble.

When I got into high school, yeah things did get worse.  These kids would get more agressive in their bullying, so I pleaded my dad to teach me how to fight.  After months of constant reasons I made up to get him to help me, I finally got him to do so with the "self defense" line.  Mostly I fought other students that picked on me, and I'd almost kill some of these kids.  I got suspended many times, and I almost got expelled from all the constant suspensions.  I barely graduated that high school, but it was rough to try to get into college.  I had to resort to studying abroad.

Before I could end up doing anything for school, I got into a big argument one morning about where my life was headed with my parents.  I went through the day worrying exactly what my life was going to, but I remember having this feeling I couldn't shake off that my life would be going downhill if I couldn't change.  You might argue it was my dad teaching me to fight that triggered all of this, but I always thought it was what happened next that triggered it all.  As night came by, I was about to take a turn for the worst.

I couldn't drive back then, and I've never had an official license to drive in my life despite my owning an Aventador currently.  So at the time, I was 19 to be exact, I used the highly established train system that Japan relies on.  I used the women only cars on the trains to avoid one of the infamously many sexual offenders that lurk around Japan, not that I care anymore about avoiding conflict.  As I was walking from the station to my home, some one of those sexual offenders caught me.  My first thought was to find some way to get myself out of his grip, but when I did I may have taken it a bit too far.  I still threw hits at him even after he was nowhere near able to chase after me.  Maybe it was shocking then, but now I'd say I just rid the world of one more useless piece of trash.  Same reason I never liked Jacob.

When I got home soon after, I was shaken up.  My mom was in distress, maybe because I looked like I had seen a ghost or maybe because she just learned my father was in a car accident.  At the instant I learned that, my fear went straight to hatred, and I never looked back.  I knew then and there that I needed to escape my old life, start anew.  I couldn't take the stress of living in Japan, and I didn't even live on my own yet.  In the moment, I devised a plan to start my new life.  I'll explain it, but you'd think I was lucky to have done it successfully.  I was going to fake a murder-suicide by hanging my mother and writing a suicide note, giving a tip to the police that I was going to jump off of a bridge.  As I made that up within five minutes of rash thinking, I pondered where I'd go and what I was going to do.  I didn't know, but I did know I'd need protection.  I knocked out my mother at dinner, hung her from our ceiling fan, and took the family katana with me.  It was priceless, made in the 17th century.  I had to take it with me, and I still have it.  I didn't know how to use any of them yet, but I took every firearm my father had in the house.  I wrote some suicide note and ran away into the night, not looking back. To this day I wouldn't allow myself forgiveness for what I did to my mother in a blind rage, I can't bear to remember that night without at least spacing out in melancholy.

I had to live on the streets for only a few days before hearing about this sanctuary place. I hate thinking about my past but I have to live with it, you'll never hear me openly refer to it as what it was actually called but for the sake of honesty I will here. It was called the Ark.  I heard about it from hearsay and rumors, eventually finding a way with a few others to seek its opportunity it had to offer.  When I went there, it was a bustling city on a man-made island in the Pacific Ocean.  Somewhere between Japan and America, but closer to Guam.  Months after my arrival, the wealth on the Ark began to shift rapidly from comfortable to discriminating.  99% of the wealth now belonged to 1% of the population, and us usual people had to live in miles and miles length of shipping container slums.  Diseases ravaged, uncleanliness spiked, water was cut from us, and people were getting desperate.  This 1% was using the security forces as a personal army to suppress us.  A revolution was born and all those willing to fight joined in.  I was one of those chosen to fight and not volunteered.  As an added security bonus from the Ark's law enforcement, the Security, we were all given aliases.  I chose for me what I felt was the most memorable nickname: The Anger.

We had no squad, and all fought together with the strength we collectively had, so I had kept quiet like I usually did.  And yeah, people wanted to talk to me.  Although this time I knew they were on my side, so I would talk back.  I had met with three other people that frequented conversation: The Warrior, The Fortress, and The Firestarter.  We all had our own special abilities that enabled advantages in resistance combat.  Warrior said he used to be in the Army Rangers, so he knew the ins and outs of tactical combat.  He could also blow anything up.  The Fortress was a combat engineer, he had gadgets machinated to fulfill any scenario.  He knew how to keep his cool on the job while being shot at.  The Firestarter, despite his ominous name, was a combat medic. Always did have a hopeful aura with him.

What did I do?  I learned how to use that sniper of my father's and also became an expert hacker.  I learned I was a natural born sharpshooter, I never missed a shot with my dad's sniper rifle.  But when I had to be up front to be on the field hacking for my team, I used my grandfather's assault rifle.  Eventually, I built myself a body count of nearly four figures and a name for myself.  It's rumored that many Security officers took to our side just so they didn't have to fight me and realized the point of our cause.  I became the figurehead of the Resistance revolution, and we succeeded.  Nearly so great, that we had the chance to take the island over for ourselves and rebuilt it to a fair society. Once we all learned that those who hoarded all the money weren't going to be incarcerated for their actions, I did something really stupid. I took a small army and blew all those wealthy hotheats to bits by destroying their tower headquarters they all lived in, I watched it fall hundreds of feet and collapse in on itself. I was a terrible, rash-acting living fit of rage back then.

After that I had to move on, I was a terrorist now. Actually, The Anger was a terrorist. I then decided to be flown to the one place that would have a limitless need of an angry assassin like me: America.  Like my life on the Ark I had nothing on me but my weapons.  I flew and settled in nearly every frigid state America has to offer: Colorado, Utah, Minnesota, and Wisconsin to name a few.  I had many interesting tidbits to speak about from almost every state in the country, but the puny Minnesota had the number one for most impactful.

The news of The Anger already spread around to mainland America and I had to be as civilian as possible. I couldn't leave someone to die, but I regret the day I saved the life of one special detective in St. Paul. She thanked me, but then thanked me further when she alone found out I was The Anger. Not arresting me but instead housing me, she offered anything to me so long as I lived with her. Something didn't seem right then.  Maybe it was because I recognized her from high school, or maybe because there was some look in her eye that didn't look like "justice".  It looked like "corruption". She wanted me to call her "Keisatsu", which is Japanese for "police".  We had lived a short life together. Who'd think my first time would be with a woman, huh? I didn't.  I didn't look like I felt much in return, but inside I was kinda happy.  She never turned me in, she never ratted me out, and she never let anyone know she was with me.

For what seemed like too long in Minnesota, I wanted badly to tell Keisatsu that I had to move on.  One day while I was alone, she barged in with a full SWAT team. At first thinking I've been betrayed I was as angry as I'd ever been, but surprise caught me when she took out that SWAT team in what seemed like a change of heart. We fought off a lot of cops unscathed, but during the second wave of snow-town's police, Keisatsu turns to me and says, "Look, even if you make it: I won't.  I'm sorry Ren, for all your trouble in school and for putting you in this situation".  Before I had the ability to say anything, she took her sidearm and shot herself in the head.  I didn't understand, she was fighting them off just fine and she up and committed suicide.  In an instant, I didn't hesitate or say a word but only ran.  Again, never looking back.  Just like with my parents I missed out on the respected burial of another close person in my life.

I had nowhere in America I wanted to travel to anymore, so I left it all and what little I had to start over yet again back in Yokohama, but this time not a complete start over.  I was still The Anger, and I didn't know what to do with that. Around that time, I just turned 25 when I finally settled in a nice new apartment near the shore courtesy of my honed hacking skills.  I didn't buy it, I hijacked it from a sole buyer and threw them out of the picture.  I wondered what to do with my time, and then I had the Baader-Meinhof effect with one particular name doing some local research: Aaron Maximus.

When I looked into Aaron Maximus, I found so many astounding feats of his accomplished past including, but not limited to, time travel, necromancy, immortality, and whatever some DNA-altering enhancement serums were.  I looked into that last bit. It took a bit of travelling, hack and dash, and infiltration to find out myself what they really were.  Just by the sheer amounts of intrusion I had to commit I started to get much better in the art of stealth.  I could rely amazingly on stealth, but also only my blade considering all my firearms were unsilenced.  These serums were a self-introduced genetic mutation to human DNA that allowed combat alterations that could be self-controlled telekinesis, fire, ice, electric, damage absorbing, and invisibility abilities.  I took it upon myself to collect every useful bottle ever available and experimenting with them myself.  I had to get myself to many of Aaron's laboratories until I found one of two apt locations that held a time travelling platform he called the MDT, also with more serums.

As I already knew how to kill, and potently at that, but none of what I did got me any closer in this little pet project of mine. I found what I'd gathered insufficient to answer any questions I had, but then found another person in Aaron's list of resources that might be unassuming enough to meet in person and help me out.  I encrypted my number, though in America private numbers can be established by typing \*67, and did my kind of quick background check.

A younger sounding man answered the phone and the first thing I said to him was his name.  I told this "Nate" that if he has nothing better to do with his time to meet me by many means possible at this peace garden a mile from my apartment that Japan set up after the second world war.  Of course I told him the name of the location as opposed to describing it, and he unexpectedly obliged.  I tracked his location for the next week and he managed to find his way to me in four days.  The night I tracked him to Yokohama I met him there at a close and respected time in unassuming attire.  He seemed very confused when he found an ordinary person approaching him.  I told him of my intentions and again he obliged.  I still have no idea why he was so willing to work with me, but back then I had my suspicions.

To the start of an auspicious partnership, he did help me earn the ability to have me devise my own serums.  The only thing he asked for the entire time I was with him was if I wanted to fuck.  Yes, that's it.  At the time I thought I could trust him, so I actually said yes.  I slightly lament on those days simply because it seems so rash, but looking back with what I know now it was that we were both broken and lonely.  I'm staying humble here, so there'll be no more about that.  Eventually my feeling made my head hurt, confused with the past and my ever present hatred.  I still don't really know why, and I'm glad it didn't end his life then and there, but I shot him dead. I hate my past. No no, no hate. Not anymore.

I guess the guy was on close watch by Aaron, because next I saw him he was back home and alive.  The next few months were me perfecting my skills in stealth, sharpshooting, and forgetting all about the serums.  Another part of my life where I didn't know what I was doing and felt like I was an idiot letting down everyone I wish were still alive. However in March while travelling America yet again, the warm states this time, I met two particular figures at a bar in Florida.  One was an odd sight of a suit and short shorts, and I learned she used to be in the Yakuza.  Her name was Aki Yamada, I found her always upbeat tone very inauspicious.  The other was a beat up wreck of a human being named Jacob Wright.  I got to know Aki after some time, if I'd known she'd be so clingy to me now even to a sexual point who knows what I'd have done to poor Aki back then. Now I'm just glad that Kari killed Jacob and that Aki is still alive. She better hold Ashton close, because I only wish Kari is soon able to do the same with Nate.

Not even two months later, I caught wind of an organization hiring elite killers to clean up what I now know as ZEDs.  These nasty creatures were ravaging Europe at the time and they needed people to kill their dirty little secrets that were taking over.  I applied, knowing what little I had to do, and assigned myself to designated sharpshooter. I didn't know Aaron, Ashton, Kari, and Simon were at ground zero and I didn't know Kari and her friends. I'd know all that later when Ashton told me the former and Kari told me the latter. All I knew was I was being compensated for doing the world an ultimate good. It felt good doing good and it distracted me from the bad that I now realize I should have confronted.

I had to be flown out to France, to meet with the three people that were left from before the storm.  I came to like one of them, name of one "DJ Scully", he was charismatic just as he was clever.  I heard of him before that whole crisis, a famous underground trap DJ in England. I also just talked to him because it kept my mind off of being angry all the time.  He, of all people, actually tried to get Nate into our group too.  Nate yet again obliged, I swear he must've had nothing to do with his life back then.  Before we could get him with us, our group fell apart and Scully and I had to abandon him.  I took Scully to live with me if he needed to despite it risking my residence being known, but it ultimately didn't matter and he was grateful until he moved back to England. We keep in touch online, it honestly makes me happy when he sends me things as he was a means to get me away from being a bad person. Scully saw the good in everybody, but I didn't want to get romantically involved since both of my previous partners died by a handgun.

On our way out of there though, we ran into Nate somewhere in Germany about a month later.  But some girl was with him, and she wasn't too happy.  Later would I know this to be the good-hearted yet really immature young Kari Frost. She kept screaming how I killed her two best friends, and then I remembered seeing these two German guys getting attacked in the fog a few hours prior.  It took a long time for me to approach Kari to tell her I didn't do it because I knew that was one of the most life changing losses she'd ever faced, but when I did she asked who really did it.  I hated that I had to say I couldn't see who it was. No, hate is a strong word. It made me sad too that I couldn't tell her who really did it.

I don't want to get off topic. Anyways, they weren't doing anything wrong but I've been through the "if I don't kill them first, they'll kill me" thing before and regretted it with Nate.  Scully suggested we let them be and part ways with our pairs and out of my best interests, I did.  I threw at them surplus supplies and told them to get lost before I broke down again. I guess Nate found his way out of France with Kari because Jacob found them in Florida and I guess Jacob wasn't too happy because he said he'd go after Nate, and then go after Aki and I.  He never did because Kari killed Jacob about five months after that point.  They ran off to California to Los Angeles where Aki lived and I just flew back to Yokohama like I usually would.

By the time I was 26, I was just enjoying learning the art of stealth even further, but Scully was drafted to a US vs. RF war in Ukraine that was just absolute ridiculousness.  I followed without his knowledge as a splinter cell sharpshooter, and then the dumbest thing happened.  The ZEDs started barging in and both American and Russian troops just dropped what they were doing and pointed all weaponry at the ZEDs.  After that, the war ended and all the ZEDs were eradicated.  Soon after our return, the two of us were invited to a Christmas party Kari and Nate were hosting, which was a surprise because neither of them liked me.  Also the last I heard of her was June, Nate in August.  Turns out some very interesting individual who knew Aaron, Nate, and Ashton's brother Alex popped up claiming he's nobody and demanded to speak with all of them.  It would be within a few years that seeing someone with hate such as his would inspire me to try and quell it.

There's not much to go on except that I went to Nate and Kari's once more to destroy a car Alex was driving, Aki's wish.  Aki apparently hated that car and what Alex was going to drive to in it.  That guy's only ambition, destroyed by a single well placed shot.  Sometimes I want more in my life than for someone to just know that I'm a good sniper. Some time later I'd meet Simon for the first time, and he demanded I pray to the ghost I knew as Isha and give offerings every year on the day she was murdered and her birthday in hopes to control and quell her.  So far, it's been working but I don't even want to begin with that ghost. Another part in my past I've gotten over.

That May, just after starting to quell Isha, I was given an odd new addition to have to ask help upon.  Aaron contacted me personally and it would be the first time I'd speak to him directly rather than simply be in the same room as him. For Aaron to have to ask for my help was strange, but he wanted me to help some young girl asking for his help. This girl was Irish, name of Leila.  She had everything about her that deemed similar to Aaron's condition: invulnerable to any death with the exception of suicide.  So as long as she didn't put her gun to herself she'd be 18 and in good health forever.  Turns out she was born directly from some project that was made to replicate the Maximus legacy, and when we confronted Aaron he told us everything and we thought he was going to end himself right there.  He didn't, he's alive to this day and I'm thankful for that too.  He's good man after all.

By then I started to quell down on my wrath thankfully and vent it all into rocking into that guitar, and also took time to stop and think "what have I been doing with my life" for the first time then.  It occurred to me too that I had only heard about Hyun-Ae from Simon until I saw her talking to Kari while I was attending one of Kari and Nate's occasional parties. I decided to talk to her after she was done conversing with Kari.  She's a bright girl. Korean and used to be a bit of a drunkard.  Don't see how Simon loves her exactly but Simon has, and always will be, confusing beyond fuckery itself.

After that point around then I had been studying the ideals and traditions of Zen Buddhism. This involved a lot of resilience and meditation. In the process I had found that killing is not the answer and that use any means necessary to avoid causing someone's family dismay. I assume from my efforts in seeking Nirvana I had found enlightenment. I think this because I found myself then with the Japanese symbol for "spirit" or "god" burned into my left hand. I then noticed I have powers to slow time, teleport over short distances, and even have spiritual night vision that allows me to also see beings through walls. I may have used my powers to an extreme frequency, but its really because of convenience.

After defusing an international crisis in the making that Aki tried to initiate, I wanted to travel the world.  I did what I did in that time as the last time I ever use hate as a means to fight, but ultimately I learned that was no longer a path I was willing to take. I then traveled without holding a single weapon on me but the powers in my body.  Just to the beginning of my travels, I came to a dead halt in northern Ukraine.  I had encountered the Chernobyl Disaster Exclusion Zone.  Even though it happened 101 years ago, people still live there.  I had the chance tour it, even if I had to gather myself a new Slavic arsenal.  Uncovering irradiated ruins, encountering swarms of mutated humans and animals, and uncovering the truth by entering the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant itself, I was able to do a lot of good by being the only one to get that far.  Turns out The Zone exists still but the government doesn't realize that the only danger is the radiation inside the structures within, not in the outside areas anymore.  A bonus plus, the Elephant's Foot is safe enough to investigate somehow beyond all radioactive scientific logic.  If I can stand and stare at it from ten feet minimum distance, it should be safe.  If somehow I'm simply immune to radiation, then I suppose I'm the only lucky one because ten feet away still equals to imminent death.

Now that I had sought peace upon myself, I had become not as angry as I'd been known to be. I still feel the wrath inside of me, which is why I have a means to silence it. I'm sure this kind of peace, or at least solace, is what my dad and Keisatsu would have wanted for me. The only two people to ever live that I loved, but not the only two people I care about, because I am convinced to this day that love will never find me.

It was a long and tumultuous road reaching this point and I haven't seen true peace at all in it, even up to this point. During the summer I got to know Staff Sergeant Tyler Johnson, a friend of Nate's and Ashton's, a little bit more flying out to see him in Washington state. After all that I didn't really want to have him get involved with my life like other romantic interests did and had their lives ruined. I cared too much to do that to him, and we haven't spoken in a long time by this point. At the end of the summer that year Aki wanted to boast in front of a crowd about her driving skills on some mountain passes in the Hollywood Hills, and she got exactly what she wanted. Kari showed up without our knowledge and easily overtook a Ferrari 512 TR I drove and then passively shoved Aki's smug face into a guardrail by distracting her with her cornering skill. It was there first that I thought there was more to this bad-tempered immature German girl than we'd probably ever know. Little did I know in the future how that would devolve then later evolve greatly.

A lot cooled down and nobody really had too much to involve others with for the rest of the year, I met with Ashton and Nate on some occasions as we were all piecing together some ancient mystery that apparently led us to some fate we're all stuck in. To this day I still don't get it, we're all reincarnates to an old group of heroes in the 15th century that started a Cycle of those trying to stop a great evil? We still don't know what this great evil is, but Kari seems to think she knows how to lead the charge. She won't tell us a thing, though, and keeps referencing someone named "Katya". That was about all there was to that fall and winter, all until January of the following year that is.

Around January Ashton announced to me that he was in need of someone to help add some range to his close range tactics in some American homeland operations. While I feel guilty for what followed I won't say that I'd have refused, I'd help someone I trust in any way I could when asked. Because a lot of it led to isolated nights after a long day's travel in combat gear it stirred up some fling between us. I don't really want to talk about it, but he's the closest I could ever get to a person in life. It broke me up inside that it was with the man that married my best friend and I felt terrible. I can only hope that I can be forgiven for something like that, not only did it reinforce my belief I am cursed to never find love but after Kari exposed it as if she were an amazing lawyer Aki took it much worse than being mad or sad at either of us. She then became a cuckold to it all, getting involved and watching. Sometimes my life makes my head spin so much I'm too dizzy to concentrate properly.

I left those operations behind not only for the better for Ashton and I but because I found a lead that might end the whole crisis I had been working with him to stop. I got in contact with the man that was always two steps ahead of our operations and he was impressed enough to meet me. We met in person and I realized one false move could seriously end all of America, but we walked away on the terms of we leave each other alone and he'd never know when I was coming for him if he tried to make a move. I remember laughing at that comment and asking how, but explaining to you why he took me seriously takes a bit of context. All the operating communications tech in those ops were on equipped smart watches, and every person gets one. There were goons running about the operating field, on land and below it, who collected them from murdering operatives. They wore ballistic masks, ones I would see sooner than I'd expect in the following months. Before this man I layed about pictures of hundreds of those masks, individually designed, a single real mask I wore, and a picture of a pile of around 500 of those watches.

There's a lot more to tell and I'd like to elaborate on Kari more, someone who has done me a great favor I can never repay, but I must find the time to finish that off. For now I will leave you patient listeners here and thank you for making it this far.