Emden

**Emden** (エムデン, *Emuden*) is a slave boxer from Pompeii and was the city's most popular champion. He becomes an opponent and rival of Cestvs.

## Appearance

Emden is an adult, muscular man with rather petite stature for his age. He has short greyish hair, red eyes and slightly tanned skin. He dressed in typical slave fashion with regular clothes.

## Personality

Emden is a serious and very competitive person. A proud slave boxer, Emden trains rigurously as a means to achieve true strength, and is very disciplined, never missing his training and detests when his training gets interrupted, often telling others to get out of his way. Emden struggles with his relationship with Sabina, being a slave purchased by her ever since a young age, Emden has long sought her approval and be noticed by her, which is increasingly difficult as she's a self-centered diva who grows more vain by the day. Emden grows increasingly frustrated as his attempts to please her end up with modest praise or even downright indifference. In a fight, Emden is a fair yet ruthless combatant who spares no mercy to his opponents, a testament of his iron will determination to remain victorious.

## Story

During his childhood, Emden was gathered along many other child slaves including Nashca to be presented to a young Poppea Sabina. She announced she could only buy one of them, so she decided she would take the most hardworking boy. What ensued afterwards was a bloody fight between all the children in order to prove their mettle, an outcome that is said to have not been her intention yet molded her personality. With the remaining two being Emden and Nascha, the latter used his larger build as an advantage to pin Emden down, yet in a moment of distraction, Emden headbutted Nashca on his face, literally breaking his nose and giving him his signature twisted nose. The strike left Nashca so bloodied that he immediately gave up, this making Emden to be bought by the Sabina household.

Emden would thus serve his new master for several years while building himself as a slave boxer. Eventually he hit a slump on his growth as a fighter due to his petite build and could not see how to become stronger. At that moment he met Democritus of Cádiz, a mysterious man who pointed out each and every flaw in Emden. Seeing his determination, Democritus decided to instruct Emden. What ensued was a rigorous training regime focusing on correcting Emden's weaknesses and strengthening his lower body and teach him other fundamentals. Through his teaching, Emden was able to achieve numerous victories and soon developed confidence on his abilities. Eventually, Emden would learn and master the deadly Decapitator technique with which he killed two opponents. Seeing the results of his training, Democritus mysteriously disappeared, while Emden vowed to not use the technique because of its deadliness.

## Abilities

Emden was the most powerful slave boxer of Pompeii, holding an extraordinary record of a 48 win streak, he was known as an undefeated champion at the time of his introduction and loved as the city's strongest fighter. Despite Emden's short stature he had an impressive physique. He was capable of walking in a posture with a low center of gravity which placed enormous strain on his legs and was able to do this all year along while carrying several weights on both his arms and legs, never failing to do his daily training, and even creating a path where weed doesn't grow. This increased his lower body strength and gave him a fortified defense as he kept his arms on his upper body.

Emden fighting skill could live up to his fame, being able to easily defeat a thug much larger than himself, while sustaining no injury or exhaustion and even dragging him on the streets like a weight. When fighting he opted to use thick and heavy gloves that covered his hand all the way up to his elbows, which helped him both offensively and specially for defense, and signaling he also had respectable arm strength as well. Emden was a flexible fighter, capable of maintaining a solid defense and being particularly skilled with back strikes, wide swings, hammer fists and palm strikes, being able to perform swift combos.

### Techniques

* **Decapitator** (魔王軍, *Dantō*): Emden's deadliest technique. It consists of striking into the opponent's Medulla Oblongata with a hammer fist, very much akin to modern day rabbit punches. A successful hit will cause numbness, memory loss, and in the worst case scenario, instant death, thus making it a literal killing technique. Emden's Decapitator is made deadlier by the use of his heavy gloves to increase the overall damage. Emden typically crouches in a defense position to lure his opponents into trying to strike his stomach, thereby lowering themselves to where he can strike from above. Emden typically repudiates using this technique because of its deadliness.
* **Three Hit-Combo**: An unnamed three hit combo involving a back strike, a downward swing and a straight fist in quick succession.