A. Yamada

## **Self Introduction: A. Yamada [Ex-Yakuza]**

Hi everybody.  I'm Aki Yamada, commander and CEO of Nocturn Paranormal Research and Armed Forces.  Today I've taken a bit out of my busy time to inform you little curious ears just who is that girl.

I was born in Nagoya, Japan on February 12th, 2059.  I thought I'd skip the speaking of my native tongue because none of you sillies would understand me anyways.  I lived your typical normal Japanese kid life.  If you don't know what that is, it's: stay obedient, stay polite, dress accordingly, repeat.  Pretty boring.  Hey, did you know all the men around there wear dress shirts and suits?  Nothing else!  In America, everyone's wearing casual stuff like kids it's funny.  And, and my name means autumn, well autumn of the mountain field in its entirety.  All of my siblings were named after the seasons in some way it's weird. I'm getting off track, oops.

Everyone would pick on me about being short, which is ironic because everyone in Japan is kinda short.  Well, everyone but my siblings and parents, and family. I was always shorter than my siblings 'cause two of them were full teenagers but now I don't even know, I think I'm tall enough now? I wonder what we're all comparably like as adults now. Eh, whatever. Back then I guess people just wanted some reason to pick on the nerdy looking kid in glasses.  I think it was my final year in high school, but, like, after school I was walking home and these boys walked up all smug to me.  I got kinda mad.  They were being rude and picking on me, saying things I'd dare lean towards sexual harassment.  It scared me back then, but my second oldest brother always taught me to stand up for myself so I did. I told them to go away and they just said meaner things. I shoved one, and the dummy shoved me back, but then I shoved harder. I didn't even realize until a fence post was sticking clear through his chest of what I had just done. The other boys ran off, but by then I knew I was totally screwed. I didn't even mean to do that, like would the police even take me to prison for that? Those kinds of thoughts. I'd pray for the kid if I was even allowed back into Japan.

After dinner that night, the cops came to my door asking for me.  I went upstairs and dressed in pretty much what people see me dressed in nowadays, and went out to see them.  They wanted me to go down to the nearest station for questioning and my nervous self agreed. I went down there and answered their questions, I don't even remember what exactly they were but clearly it was about that poor boy I didn't mean to push into the post. I do remember looking utterly ashamed when I walked out that door on my family. I don't think I've ever seen my family in any way since then. That's a lot more sad than it sounds, actually.

After that, some guy in all that classic cliche leather crotch-rocket biker outfit was hiding in the shadows and whispered over to me and told me he was a hitman.  To. This. Day. I ask myself why he would have said that and knowing who he was after that point, I'd say he thought I looked lonely and maybe I was crazy enough to join him. I figured someone would at least try to make an excuse instead of straight up say they were a hitman. But, so, he was after that cop I had been questioned by, said he embezzled funds that belonged to the mafia. I was really uncomfortable by the situation obviously, but then he whips out his phone and shows me the CCTV of the dude right after I left the building. This cop was one of two reasons I hated police for so long. This guy, see, he immediately goes out and both blackmails a less-experienced rookie officer he must've kept a thumb on *and* sexually harasses a woman working there and goes into a private restroom with her. Both of these he could do because of all of that money he withheld. I took the biker dude's gun not so much as saying a word and hid it in my own coat.

I walked calmly into that police station, found that bathroom, shot the lock off, and found the older police officer. So I started blasting, unloading the rest of the magazine into his naked body and dipped so hard out of there. I ran out and told the biker guy I did it for him. He just sits there with a face like, "what on Earth?" and tells me to hop on. We zoomed far out of that place and he took me back to the mafia with him.

After becoming a better killer and the greatest drive-by shooter with submachine guns ever, I was pretty notoriously popular in the entire gang.  I kinda fell in love with the guy and, if you know my reputation, you're probably asking who took my virginity.  Yeah it was him, his name was Yuuya Sakudo.  Pretty nice guy when you got to know him, really rough around the edges and protective.  Pretty much my mentor and my first real friend.

Well I got to be so good at killing and driving that my boss and everyone in the nearby gang, except Yuuya, feared I would get to be too strong.  What did they do?  Well, they killed him. Sometimes his last moments, that face he made of shock and realization, it haunts me. He was my first and only friend up until I met Ashton and Alex. I just wanted someone to like me and be with me, and the cold truth of reality was pierced into myself as well as I was wounded enough to endure hell as the police arrested my unstably hurt body and carried Yuuya's dead body off somewhere else. I wish I could get back into Japan just so I could see his grave. I want to catch up with him.

Well, erm, the cops certainly loved seeing that I was in prison finally.  I was a bit miserable for a time in prison and I was sent to the worst blocks in there.  Damn they were assholes, treated me like subhuman trash for who I was.  So you know what I did?  Nothing. I endured it, no longer angry at anything but sad. It's like they didn't know I had feelings, I cried a lot in prison. There were four other guys in that job that landed me in prison and killed my boyfriend, and as it turns out I was yet to be dealt with. These four barged their way into the prison. It was a prison break heist, but not to bust me out. No, these lackeys wanted to finish me off for good now that they knew I had endured hell for "what I deserved". This is why you don't do things like that, okay, I was under pressure and I had not taken it out on an assassination target in years. I probably overkilled those four scum for what they did to me, and made sure they were really dead for Yuuya's sake. That was then my que to escape prison, which I did.

First thing I did?  Killed my partners and peers all the way up every floor until I got to my boss and his suite.  Probably hundreds of people in a matter of a lunch break's worth of time.  I could be making an understatement.  Good thing my boss was conservative to culture, he accepted his fate and I killed him with his own prized Edo Period katana.  I didn't take it with me, it was dirtied by his backstabbing soul.  On top of all the tattoos I got in the Japanese mafia, I got the Tokugawa crest on my lower back as a reminder of my revenge being complete and to move on with my life. To be honest, I'm more ink than skin above my waist and below my chin. It all meant something from when I got it, and my body serves as a canvas of my twisted life.

Speaking of, after that I had to leave Japan for good.  Otherwise anyone and everyone would come looking for me indefinitely.  I knew some English, and I could always learn more, so I went to America.  California was closest, at the time it was a part of the United States too.  I met Ren and Jacob travelling around Florida as a start, I didn't really like Jacob but Ren was a huge cultural and modern Japanese citizen of Yokohama.  Yokohama is barely east of Tokyo, like, they're next door neighbors.  Little did I know how much I'd find a friend in Ren at the time, at first I considered her a fellow immigrant. Later I'd consider her a fellow assassin of a different kind, but nowadays I consider her someone of great respect. She's handled her life much better than I, at least I feel that way, and at a younger age too. Eh but I don't want to talk about Jacob, I really didn't like being around him and I could tell Ren didn't either. Mostly we just got along with each other and forgot about Jacob.

Apparently something did happen between Jacob and someone I'd later be very well befriended with, and that somebody would be Nate. He had Kari with him at the time, who to be honest has come a long way. Like, Kari then was whiny and serious. A real nice girl but really emotional and annoying. Nowadays it's like: what? She's like a totally different person, she's so cool now! Ah, whatever I guess I'll get there. I owe her my life apparently.

When I started staying in my area of Los Angeles more I ended up meeting these two brothers named Ashton and Alex Mason.  Ashton was a lieutenant in the Air Force, had to quit cause the last mission he did was the unleashing of the ZEDs.  Apparently Kari was in that whole craziness then too, but really poor Ashton had been battling PTSD after a certain incident before the ZEDs came along anyways.  Great pilot of any aircraft I tell you that.  He used to get these spells or moments he'd super zone out and then that's when the PTSD kicked in. I felt really bad for him, and after a strange incident of trying to prove which one of us was better at our job we both settled on a date. A couple months later his spells started targeting me and I couldn't handle it. We took a break from each other for a couple of months, turns out it gave me a lot of time to reflect.

Working with the Mason brothers, and then later Nate, made us all really *really* rich. We were good at what we did, and it set us for life. A super luxurious life to, and all without ever doing legitimate work ever again. I got around and went around at the time, I was crazy and I was lewd. I kept myself to Ashton but even though the sexual comments I made now may seem bold I was way more unhinged then. A time when I was less responsible for myself. In my rich boredom I found Hyun-Ae Sop, this poor girl I kinda sympathized with in a way. Apparently she had some dark ties to the stuff Dr. Simon Peterson gets into still. I'm not even going to get into all the bullshit I clashed over Simon with, but I figured maybe I could mentor this girl and point her to his direction. Met me a fun man named Asher Sokolski, a wild yet true Buddhist from Ukraine. Seriously, I can't make this up. Three of us, him, Hyun-Ae, and I, teamed up for a while and I showed them both how illegality works then sent them on their own paths.

Well eventually my stupid ass decided I got bored being in the 1% of civilian life.  You know what I did?  I stepped into the senator's office, governor's man I don't really know.  I just killed all security and proclaimed that California was independant and declared myself president.  Yep, ballsy and hard to kill.  I didn't really think it through, but I owned California for a long while. I'll get more as to why I lay low in Nocturn, and what Nocturn is, in one moment.

Now I started my own business for the whole hush hush operations, legally questionable stuff. I called it Ex-Presidents Corp and I ran it and the state of California for a few years until one day I grew a conscience. I tried to launch an operation to make the country of California self sufficient in a military and defense strategy sense, but I wasn't paying enough attention to what Ren was doing. She went dark for a long time. Apparently one of the only things she did the whole year when I started that company and took over California over the summer was to join in rescuing Kari by Nate's request. Apparently Hyun-Ae was not only helping Ren help Nate rescue Kari, but also that she got romantically involved with Simon early that same year.

Well, anyways, Ren went dark for a while. Turns out she found Labs and learned a bit on who he really was and must've teamed with him in some way. Figured that would be the time she got into Buddhism herself too, not even ever knowing Asher, but nope. That was later. Well, what she did do in that time was pay attention to what I was doing and harshly destroy all I had worked for. That was when I grew a conscience, the day Ren forcefully showed me that I needed to stop and think about my life and why I had handled it so hastily and poorly. And like a friend who cares, I did.

I felt my life go up from there for the most part. Ashton proposed to me the following spring and we wed that June. Following that I found one of my closest subordinates was a fantastic leader and extremely charismatic, so I made him, as my last order as his boss, to take my place in presidency. Since then I think he's set world records for likability and acceptance in office for US standards, wouldn't be surprised if he gets re-elected he's been helpful with Nocturn.

That August was the first sign that Kari was more than she was letting on. I wanted her to race Ren and I in this mountain pass I'd been practicing on to see if I was a good enough racer in track supercars yet, and Kari said no while Ren said yes. At the race itself Kari did show up to race my McLaren P1 and Ren's F512 TR. In an AE86. You know what? Yeah, I'll say it, there's no way she should have beat us both but she did. I haven't touched that McLaren P1 since that day; to this day it sits in my garage around cars I do still drive, sitting as a reminder that there's always more than meets the eye. She went on to race in some huge event after that, but that was before she was world famous for being a hero.

2089 began a better year than any one yet for me. Ashton started taking up more military work since then too, which probably was for the best since maybe he missed it or something. It seemed like it was no rest for the wicked at that point. Soon, though, did things turn sour. In another moment I found out that Ren started having feelings for him every since she joined some shady operations in the now used to be quarantined area of New York City. Maybe a bit more than feelings, actually. It was Kari proving that in my face, like some kind of legendary warrior of a lawyer, that showed me some new kind of light. I thought then, in that moment, that my world with Ashton was over. I left everyone in that moment and it wasn't until weeks later that the new light shined in my head. Not that I should face adversary as a roadblock but instead as a new challenge. You want to know how I handled it? Like a total cuckold, and what, you'd stop me? Please. Not everyone in this world can be how you want, but you can see to it that your intervention might change that.

Apparently it was soon after that the news got out that Kari was killed in some freak accident, but it didn't last long until we all figured out something beyond science was in effect. From that point on Kari's "died once but is no longer dead" complex has brought upon interesting backlash from the universe itself, and from what we now know are gods among us and commanding us. It gave me some weird inspiration, weird inspiration that leads me here today. Part of that weird inspiration was Simon reaching out to Kari in some operation that finally brought about the end of SImon's struggles with the Foundation. Well, with all that in mind I went through to process of dismantling Ex-Presidents and have turned it into Nocturn. A private military corporation set to study these weird paranormal happenings of our world and the have the firepower to do so. One of those are the bound spirits we all now call Animas, and why I and Hyun-Ae have one would be the product of this work in action. Although I am kinda scared of mine, Atomic, it seems a bit too lethal.

I won't get all into Nocturn, that's not exactly your pay grade anymore. I will tell you, like I mentioned earlier, how Kari somehow saved my life. I asked for her help, realizing just how good of help she would be in recent times and wanting to get on her good side, in some worrying intel one of my Nocturn patrol teams caught a glimpse of in Los Angeles itself. It referenced things of the Foundation and I knew Kari helped Simon before totally wipe it. After a huge mess of a battle against what seemed like an entire army of some new mercenary group, I mean Kari had her Anima change the weather and a whole bunch of crazy shit. Eventually it led to whoever was this new army's commanding officer or whatever, and according to Kari he shot me right in the aorta. But apparently Kari's Anima can also skip time itself, and predicted he'd do that in the near future then, so she skips time where I'm shot so that nothing happens. I don't really understand it myself, but she was furious at this man so I didn't press her at the time when she was quite literally beating him to death with her Anima.

Well, that's everything for now. I've told you my life so far and you should be grateful, so for now if you'll excuse if I end this recording here. I seem to be getting an unexpected phone call.